Under attack from various quarters, the Government on Friday went into a fire fighting mode by disassociating itself from the views of BJP members of the Parliamentary Committee on Subordinate legislation which is looking into the rules regarding tobacco sale in the country that the product does not cause cancer.
But at the same time, Union Health Minister JP Nadda said that his Ministry was keen to bring down tobacco consumption in the country and has called for a high-level meeting on how to implement the bigger pictorial warnings on the tobacco products, initially proposed to be implemented from April 1, but have been kept in abeyance following recommendations from the panel led by Dilip Gandhi.
Gandhi had said there was no Indian study to confirm that tobacco use leads to cancer while a member of the panel and party MP Shyam Charan Gupta had said that “sugar causes diabetes” and it should be banned by the same logic.
In the meantime, yet another BJP MP Ram Prasad Sarmah too jumped into the controversy on Friday claiming that there was no clear proof yet linking cigarette puffing and cancer even while wondering whether tobacco contains “herbal medicine”.
Reacting on their comments, Nadda said that they are members of Parliament but we do not agree with their views and are taking measures on how to cut down tobacco consumption among people.
The views of the panel besides Gupta and Sarmah’s have left not only the opposition parties, anti-tobacco activists and medical fraternity but also an NDA ally PMK fuming.
PMK founder leader and former Union Health Minister, Anbumani Ramadoss demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention in ensuring that the manufacturers of cigarettes increase the size of pictorial warnings on cigarette packets to 85 per cent as decided earlier. “The PM should order the Health ministry to increase the pictorial warnings on cigarette packets to 85 per cent of the total area,” he said in Chennai.
Ramadoss said the statement by Gupta and Sarmah were ignorant and foolish utterances without any scientific basis. He noted that globally acclaimed institutions, including the Indian Council of Medical Research, had done hundreds of studies linking tobacco use to not just cancer, but to diseases related to kidney, lungs and brain as well. He alleged that people were apprehensive of a “collusion between health ministry and tobacco lobby.”
Stating that the tobacco industry’s market size was only Rs40,000 crore, he said the expenditure to tackle tobacco caused diseases were of Rs1,15,000 crore. “So what and where is the benefit in growing or using tobaccoIJ he asked and suggested that tobacco farmers opt for alternative crops.
On the recommendation of a Parliamentary panel to put the move on hold, he said there was no need to abide by its advice as it was just recommendatory.