All forms of chewable tobacco have been banned in the Capital for one year, with the Delhi government’s Food Safety Department issuing a notification recently.
This isn’t the first time that the government has issued such a notification. Starting in 2012, the government had banned the sale of gutka in Delhi on orders of the Supreme Court.
However, since the word ‘gutka’ was used the tobacco companies began selling the components in separate pouches. On April 13, 2016, the department changed the language of the ban in its notification to cover all forms of chewable tobacco, whether sold in one pack or meant to be mixed.
This year too, the department notified the same ban for a year on April 13. The notification banned the “manufacture, storage, distribution, or sale of tobacco which is either flavoured, scented or mixed with any of the said additives, and whether going by the name or form of gutka, pan masala, flavoured/scented tobacco, kharra, or otherwise by whatsoever name called, whether packaged or unpackaged and/or sold as one product, or though packaged as separate products, sold or distributed in such a manner so as to easily facilitate mixing by the consumer”.
