ITC Company To Resume Its Cigarette Production Amid Health Warning Row
India’s biggest cigarette producer ITC Ltd is set to resume production at its factories. The company said two weeks after it decided to shutter its plants over the government’s stringent new packaging rules. India from April 1 ordered 85 percent of a cigarette pack’s surface to be covered in health warnings, up from 20 percent, but cigarette firms stopped the production saying the policy was not clear.
$ 11 Billion tobacco industry in India is up in arms against the new rules. Hence, the company has taken to the court in New Delhi. Industry estimates show the production halt has already cost $ 850 million and risks the livelihood of millions of farmers.
In a statement to the Indian stock exchange, ITC said it will resume manufacturing of cigarettes “consequent upon a high court order passed in favor of the company”. The company did not give any details of the court decision. The only thing that isn’t clear is that whether the company will print bigger health warnings on its packs or not.
Smoking kills more than 1 million people a year in India, according to BMJ Global Health. The World Health Organization says tobacco-related diseases cost the country USD 16 billion annually.
On Saturday, repeated calls to an ITC spokesman went unanswered. Industry lobby the Tobacco Institute of India declined to comment. However, ITC said earlier this month it was not ready to print bigger, “excessive” health warnings.