Bengaluru: The World No Tobacco Day on Wednesday saw many awareness events organised by hospitals, non-profit organisations and government authorities to highlight its ill effects and curb the menace.
KSRTC staged a street play from Sarathi Jalak at Kempegowda Bus station to raise awareness. K Srinivas, Director (Personnel and Environment), KSRTC said, “KSRTC is successfully conducting many programs every year and creating awareness to stop smoking.”
In association with Narayan Seva Santhan, the KSRTC also organised, free poisonous carbon monoxide screening program, smoking cessation program and oral cancer detection programme.
KSRTC has imposed and collected around Rs 2.30 crore as fines from 1, 14,997 passengers who were found smoking in bus stations. It has also joined hands with NGOs to encourage its own employees to quit smoking.
The Department of Health and Family Welfare organised ‘Say no to tobacco’ walkathon from Anand Rao Circle to Freedom Park, where many celebrities, health professionals, college students and senior government officials from various department took part.
‘Kill a cigarette before it kills you’, was the theme when SSNMC super specialty hospital organised a walkathon. It began from Gopalan Arcade Mall on Mysuru Road and went through the main streets of RR Nagar and culminated at the SSNMC hospital.
Narayana Health launched an integrated campaign titled “#BeAQuitter”. As per the initiative Narayana Health organised free Smokerlyser test across the city.
Dr Murali Mohan B V, Senior Consultant - Pulmonology, Narayana Health, said “While tobacco consumption has declined worldwide, in India the situation is still far from desirable.”
A month long creative campaign ‘S.O.O.N - Quit Tobacco’ was initiated by Gleneagles Global Hospitals focusing on the impact that tobacco has on the cardiovascular health of people globally.
In KIA, from 9 am to 6 pm, there were awareness programme educating the public about the dangers involved in smoking. A KIA official said, “We were creating awareness on World No Tobacco Day and spread the message on how happy and healthy life is when we say no to tobacco. The response from the commuters was good and they even gave us suggestions to shut down the smoking zone on this particular day, to stop selling cigarette and many more.”
