lok Sabha elections in Assam will be smoke-less this time. The Office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Assam on Thursday instructed all the Deputy Commissioners (DCs), the Sub-Divisional Officers (SDOs) and the District Election Officers (DEOs) across the State to declare all the polling booths as no smoking zones.
“All steps have been taken to ensure all polling booths as tobacco-free zones during the polls. This is being done as per the Section 4 of the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), 2003 which prohibits smoking in public places. Since polling booths are public places, it comes under the provisions of the Act,” said RC Jain secretary & additional CEO, Assam.
The instruction came a day after an NGO, Voluntary Health Association of Assam (VHAA), requested the CEO of Assam to prohibit smoking in all the polling booths of the state during the three-phased polls, starting April 7.
The VHAA, a leading non-profit organisation working in the field of public health, while requesting the CEO mentioned that the Chief Electoral Officers of Jammu & Kashmir and Bihar had issued directives to ensure that all the polling centres in their respective states are declared smoke-free.
With the instruction from the CEO Assam today, the state became be the first state in the northeast and third state in the country to do so, the VHAA said
The directives of the CEO, assumes significance as Assam has one of the highest incidences of cancer related to tobacco use in India. According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey in 2010, 52.6 per cent of the male and 25.3 per cent of the female population in Assam use tobacco in some form or the other.
It may be mentioned here that a total of 1.87 crore electorates are likely to cast their votes in 24,275 polling stations across the state in the three dates of polls — April 7, April 12 and on April 24.