Times of India
03 February 2011
By Bapu.Deedwania

Government pushes back plan to print graphic images on packs, allegedly under pressure from the tobacco lobby
In a big blow to the country' antitobacco movement, the tobacco industry has forced the government to withdraw an order that made it mandatory to carry graphic, pictorial warnings on cigarette and gutkha packets depicting health risks of smoking and chewing tobacco.

The decision to suspend the order for two years was taken by a cabinet committee headed by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the then civil aviation minister Praful Patel, who owns a flourishing beedi business in Vidarbha.

The decision was taken on December 7, 2010, just a week after the GR on pictorial warnings came into force, under tremendous pressure from cigarette and gutkha manufacturers. Some of the manufacturers had shut their factories under protest.

The withdrawal of the order betrays a strange dichotomy on the government's stance on consumption of tobacco. On one hand it has gone to the extent of banning smoking in public places and even in films, and on the other it is letting the tobacco industry dictate terms on carrying pictorial warning that are a norm in several countries, including US, Thailand and Malaysia.

Cigarette packets in India will now continue to carry infinitely less alarming images of a scorpion and smoked lungs instead of close–ups of people ravaged by cancer. Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, an associate professor at Tata Memorial Hospital said the government's decision is a big blow to country's endeavour to defeat cancer. "In a nation where a huge part of the population is illiterate, it is important that graphic pictures depicting tobacco related cancer are printed on products." he said.

The effectiveness of these pictorial warnings, he said, has been proved in several countries, including Pakistan. India, in fact, ranks 100th in the quality of pictorial warnings on tobacco products in the world. And this, when statistically India has got a high incidence of mouth cancer up to 20 per lakh of population.

"Research carried across Asian countries like Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore has shown that a pictorial warning is a deterrent for a first–time user and increases quit rates amongst addicts.

Based on this, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Treaty mandates pictorial warning in all countries who have signed the treaty," Dr Chaturvedi said.

Interestingly, it was a Group of Ministers headed by Mukherjee that had cleared the use of harsher pictorial warnings on cigarette packets in February 2010. What changed between then and December 2010 for the government to do a complete about–turn remains a mystery.

While the tobacco industry is believed to have brought pressure on the government to relent on pictorial warnings, senior vice–president, corporate communications, ITC, Nazeeb Arif refused to comment.