PM Narendra Modi supports larger pictorial warnings on tobacco products: sources
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in favour of larger pictorial warnings on tobacco products, according to reports.
Sources reveal that he has asked Health Minister JP Nadda to go ahead with enforcing 60 to 65 pictorial warnings, setting aside the recommendations of a parliamentary committee.
PM Modi has also discussed the issue with senior BJP leaders.
During BJP’s national executive in Bengaluru, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stressed on the need to reduce tobacco consumption in the country.
Read: ‘Sugar causes diabetes, can it be banned?’ asks BJP lawmaker, backs tobacco industry
In the last few days, three BJP leaders have issued controversial statements supporting tobacco and have also claimed that there was no scientific evident to show that smoking causes cancer.
The government on October 15 of last year had issued a notification giving tobacco industry six months to ensure that all tobacco packages in India bore pictorial warnings covering 85 per cent of the surface.
According to the report, which was released in October last year, India had slipped to 136th position in terms of pictorial warnings on packages of tobacco products.
The Health Ministry has put in abeyance the move to increase pictorial warning in tobacco products to 85 per cent effective April 1.
