New Delhi: In a significant step to help people stub smoking, the Union health ministry is all set to ban sale of loose cigarettes and the minimum age for selling tobacco products raised.
Union health minister J.P. Nadda on Tuesday said that the ministry has accepted the recommendations of an expert panel, which it had constituted to give suggestions for reducing tobacco consumption, and circulated a Cabinet note for inter-ministerial consultations over the issue.
“The expert panel has recommended prohibition on sale of loose or single stick of cigarette, increasing the minimum legal age for sale of tobacco products...the ministry has accepted the recommendations of the committee,” he told the Upper House in a written reply to a question.
The experts panel had recommended raising the age of tobacco buyers from the existing 18 years to 21 years along with increasing fine for smoking in public.
The ministry’s move is in line with the WHO’s framework convention on tobacco control which states that countries “shall endeavour” to prohibit such sales as it makes them more affordable for minors. India is a signatory to the convention.
The panel has recommended that public smoking be made cognisable offence, meaning that a person caught smoking in public can be prosecuted in a court of law.
