Pictorial health warning on pack of Cigarettes will become bigger from April 1st, 2016. Only 25-30% of the pack will contain ads and other will be showing the Health Warnings says the Health Ministry which will effect from 1st April. Rajasthan High Court released an affidavit regarding the warnings on cigarette packs.
“The Health Ministry has issued the notification. As per the notification, 85 per cent pictorial warning has to be there and it will come into effect from 1 April, 2016,” a senior Union Health Ministry official told PTI.
“Today, we have only 40 per cent warning on one side, which means 160 per cent of the space is given to advertisement and promotion. On the contrary, we should warn more than we advertise,” said Vishal Rao, oncologist and member of the Karnataka government’s high power committee on tobacco control.
Previously this controversy had erupted after the BJP MPs named Dilip Gandhi, Shyam Charan Gupta and Ram Prasad Sarmah claimed that there are no effects with smoking of cigarettes and there is no clear proof that links cigarette puffing causes cancer.
“It is high time big tobacco companies and their fronts look beyond increasing profits and think of the one million Indians who die from tobacco use every year. He lost one of his relative who used tobacco. They may even try and go to the Supreme court or other courts, this is the only industry which kills its consumers,” said Jaipur based anti-tobacco campaigner Rahul Joshi who had filed the petition in court.
India`s market for cigarette use is about $19 billion in 2014, estimated by Euromonitor International. In a year it is estimated that 1 million people are killed by Smoking, BMJ Global Health Estimates. India ranks at 136th position out of 198 countries says Canadian Cancer Society.