Indians are far behind when it comes to lighting a cigarette. This has been the finding of the third edition of the "Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status".
As per the data, India’s per capita cigarette consumption is the lowest in the world at 99 cigarettes per annum. This is way lower than neighbouring countries with a similar socio economic profile like Pakistan (391), Nepal (274) and Bangladesh (172).
Moreover, the country has pipped developed countries like Germany, Italy, Spain and Japan in 'displaying' pictorial warnings on tobacco product packets, claimed the report. In India, tobacco usage is dominated by products like bidi, chewing tobacco and gutkha (85% of tobacco consumption).
In India, 20% of a cigarette pack is covered by warning pictures (40% front and none at back), placing it 123 out of 198 countries. In terms of strictly implementing the pictorial warning, Australia is No 1 with 75% front and 90% back picture warning, making it an average of 82.5% of the pack.
Also, while pictorial warnings in India have changed thrice (2009, 2011 and 2013), many countries have failed on this count. "However, we believe the impact of pictorial warnings on cigarette consumption will be low as smoking in India is predominantly via loose buying (around 70% of sales) rather than packs", said an Edelweiss Report on consumer goods named "Cigarettes: Lighting up the Opportunities".
Fourteen states and one Union Territory in India have banned gutkha under the Food Safety and Standards Regulations (2011) regulation that prohibits sale of food products containing tobacco; five more plan to follow suit.
The Edelweiss report further claimed that, "We do not expect the ban to be extended to cigarette as it is a major source of revenue for the government. In fact, we expect the gutkha ban to spur up trading to cigarettes."
Also, Indian smokers have a low quit ratio (less than 20%), which is way below that of UK, US, Brazil and Uruguay (35%), the report added.
The Edelweiss report expects cigarette consumption to rise due to its low per capita consumption, launch of 64 mm variants and premiumisation (shift from bidi, guthka). Also, over the years, regulatory actions (smoking ban in public places, pictorial warnings etc) have had limited impact on consumption.
