The Parliamentary Committee on Subordinate legislation (CoSl) on tobacco has posed 30 tough questions to the Union Health Ministry. Among others, it has sought reply on the need for bigger pictorial warning on tobacco products and whether the move would result into illegal trade in the tobacco items besides affect livelihood of those depending on tobacco trade.
The queries come a month after the Ministry on September 24, under the Rajasthan High court scrutiny, issued notification for implementation of 85 per cent pictorial health warnings on all tobacco packages by the industry. As per the notification, new packaging rules will come into effect from April 1, 2016, with the Government giving industry time to roll out tougher warnings.
On March 26, the Ministry had deferred indefinitely the anti-tobacco health warning notification after the Parliamentary Committee in its interim report asked the Centre to hold new warnings till it submits a final report on the issue.
The deferment had caused a furore with panel chairman Dalip Gandhi, a BJP MP, saying there was no India-specific evidence to show anti-tobacco warnings helped reduce tobacco use.
The panel has now again raised question on the need to implement the bigger pictorial warnings or “…is there any logic in such skewed increase in size of pictorial warning (form 40 per cent one side to 85 per cent on both the sides)”. It also sought details from the Ministry on various issues pertaining to the ingredients found in tobacco and its impact on health.
Some of the details sought by the panel are on the estimated percentage of people consuming tobacco and their break up product wise like cigarette, bidi, gutkha, khaini, pan masala etc and the steps taken towards helping the tobacco addicts to come out of his addiction.
It has also sought background and objectives of FCTC (Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) and details of Indian Membership. It also asked if the WHO/FCTC provisions are mandatory for the countries for being followed or are they only recommendatory in nature.
“If, it is mandatory whether all the countries who have ratified the convention have implemented the 85 per cent pictorial warning on packets of tobacco products. However in the event of it being recommendatory, is there any logic in such skewed increase in size of pictorial warning (form 40 per cent one side to 85 per cent on both the sides)IJ” the panel has asked.