The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Pictorial warnings nowhere in sight

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Sunday, Jul 05, 2009
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Pictorial warnings nowhere in sight

Afshan Yasmeen

Bangalore: A month after pictorial warnings on the packs of all tobacco products were made mandatory by the Central Government, they are nowhere in sight. While some local brands of gutkha have graphic images of a scorpion, several popular brands are yet to implement the rule.

To highlight the hazards of tobacco intake, the Union Health Ministry made the display of pictorial warnings such as a cancer-disfigured face or diseased lungs mandatory from May 31. Sources in the tobacco industry said it might take another month to implement the rule.

A top official in the State Anti-Tobacco Control Cell said the delay was because the manufacturers were still distributing stocks that were produced before May 31. “Anything manufactured on or after May 31 is supposed to have the new health warning. It is the duty of the Excise Department to strictly enforce the rule,” the official said.

New stocks

Sources in the tobacco industry said they are gradually distributing stocks with the new health warnings across the country. “The existing stocks that were manufactured before May 31 are likely to last for another month. We have already started distributing the new stocks in some places and it will be extended all over the country gradually,” a representative of ITC, a cigarette manufacturing company, told The Hindu.

Tobacco vendors in the city said they are left with no choice but to sell the old stock. “We are selling whatever we are being supplied. We did not get stocks for the last two days and the distributor told us that it was because the new packs with the warnings were being readied,” said Mohan Singh, a pan stall vendor on Cunningham Road.

WHO mandate

Pictorial warnings are mandated under the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act. India has also signed and ratified the WHO-Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The WHO-FCTC mandates that all signatory countries ensure display of pictorial warnings.

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