Himachal Min calls for structured response on tobacco control

Himachal Health and Family Welfare Minister Kaul Singh Thakur today made a strong plea for structured response on tobacco control with earmarked budget and sustainable funding pattern.
Thakur, who was participating in panel discussion on 'Taxing health harming products and creating health promotion funds' at the 46thUnion World Lung Health conference in Cape Town in South Africa, said that he had taken up the matter regarding earmarking separatebudget for tobacco control for all the states with the Union Ministry of Health.
Himachal government was already utilising the money collected by imposing fines under COTPA (Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products) Act, 2003, and till date the state had collected 2 lakh USD by way of fines and was using the same for tobacco control measures, he said.

Thakur said that he had taken up the matter with the Chief Minister to part with some percentage of VAT (Value added tax) collected from tobacco products to be utilised for tobacco control measures.
Thakur, who was on the panel with experts from Vietnam and Philippines, showcased the success of Himachal Pradesh in tobacco control and said the state haddoubled the VAT on tobacco products from 18 to 36 per cent last year.
"There was lot of pressure from the industry to roll back the decision, but we stuck to it," he added.

He informed that the state government had recently imposed ban on open sale of loose cigarettes, which was a public health concern particularly with regard to youngsters and involved tax evasion.

The minister said the Government of India had proposed that the companies would allocate 2 per cent of their profits for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
"This provides big opportunity, but it also poses immense challenge as under the garb of CSR, the risk of tobacco companies (and the like), propagating and promoting their cause cannot be ruled out and this conflict of interest needed to be addressed," he said.
He also said that there was need to create health promotion fund at the national and state levels to ensure that tobacco control gets matching funds without any interruption.
Thakur said there was a need to learn from successes of different sectors like climate change and vaccines, but this cannot happen if there is no co-investment from the government itself.

He proposed that the 'Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease' should consider doing a 'Call to Action to End Tobacco Use' in the coming years.