Pictorial warnings on tobacco products should remain at 40 percent, says Gupta

BJP MP Shayam Charan Gupta on Thursday said the pictorial warnings on tobacco products should remain at 40 percent.

"The GoM appointed by the previous government passed a resolution according to which 40 percent of space of packet will be utilized for warning. I don't know on whose orders a notification was issued which said 85 percent of space should be used rather than 40 percent for warning," he said.

"This resulted in nationwide protests as this can prove to be harmful for this industry and can lead to unemployment," he added.

Gupta said that the parliamentary panel on subordinate legislation examining the provisions of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 forwarded a report to the chairman to avoid the situation of unemployment.

"There were notices in Uttar Pradesh to shut down the beedi factories and in order to avoid both the situation of unemployment and so that the business of beedi does not suffer, the legislative committee forwarded a report to the chairman for re-examination and asked the government to hold the advertisement for few days. The whole scenario was only this," Gupta said.

BJP leader Dilip Gandhi, who is the chief of a parliamentary committee, had earlier this week said that there is no Indian evidence to link cancer to cigarettes.

Gandhi, who heads the parliamentary panel on subordinate legislation examining the provisions of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003, had said that all studies linking cancer to tobacco have come from abroad and that there is no Indian survey report to confirm it.

The committee has reportedly delayed the government's plans to enforce bigger health warnings on cigarette packets by saying it wants time to study the issue.