Bigger pictorial warnings on tobacco products from April 2016. But will this stop smokers?

Pictorial health warning on packages of tobacco products will be bigger from 1 April, 2016. A notification to this effect was issued today by the Health Ministry saying that all tobacco products will carry warnings covering 85 per cent of the package area, up from the 40 per cent at present.

This came a day before a hearing on this matter is scheduled in the Rajasthan High Court.

"The Health Ministry has issued the notification and it will come into effect from 1 April, 2016," a senior Union Health Ministry official told PTI.

PTI is also in possession of the notification, signed by Joint Secretary K C Samria. He said the Ministry will seek six months as manufacturers need time to make the adjustments.

The Rajasthan High Court had on 9 September ordered the Centre to ensure that larger pictorial warnings are carried on all tobacco products by 29 September.

In March 2015, the government had indefinitely delayed the implementation of bigger pictorial warnings, pending the decision of a parliamentary committee which was examining the issue.

The committee is looking into the contentious issue of amendment to the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008, to increase the size of pictorial warnings from the current 40 per cent to 85 per cent as recommended earlier.

Delay in implementation

The increase in the size of pictorial warnings was to come into effect from 1 April, 2015, but the deadline was extended by the government as the committee was looking into the issue.

Earlier, a controversy had erupted after BJP MPs Dilip Gandhi, Shyam Charan Gupta and Ram Prasad Sarmah had claimed there is no clear proof yet linking smoking and cancer and there are "nil" effects of smoking.

While Gandhi, who is the head of the parliamentary panel, had said that there was an Indian study to show the link between tobacco usage and cancer, he added that many people who chain smoke beedis are not affected by any ailment till date.