BURNING ISSUE
Govt plans to help people kick the butt …………Madhavi Rajadhyaksha I TNN
Goa/Mumbai: Support groups for those who want to kick the butt, tobacco cessation clinics in every district, smoke-free metros and a nationwide survey to map tobacco consumption. This is what India hopes to achieve.
This is an exciting time for tobacco control in India, said health ministry officials who took the countrys antitobacco movement a step forward last weekend.
The ministry of health and family welfare (MOHFW) brought together state governments, voluntary organisations and doctors from across western India in Goa, in a first-time initiative funded by the Bloomberg Global Initiative. The buzz of activity comes close on the heels of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates announcement pledging $500 million for the global fight against tobacco in developing countries.
However, there are quite a few obstacles in the fight. We have a comprehensive act (The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003, but implementation is an issue, admitted Jagdish Kaur, chief medical officer of the ministry.
The government promises to assist those who want to quit their tobacco habit. The ministry plans to expand the number of cessation clinics (centres which offer medical therapy and counselling for those who want to give up tobacco use) from the existing 18 in India to 100 with a target of one in every clinic. Chennai has made a headstart with a unique initiative of a Nicotine Anonymous group, a support group for tobacco quitters. The ministry will also set up six testing laboratories to test for tar and nicotine.
Come September, and the government alongwith the IIPS (International Institute for Population Sciences) in Deonar will begin a country-wide survey mapping the tobacco consumption habits of Indians through interviews with 70,000 persons, which will serve as an stepping stone for further prevention activities.
But several hurdles are to be crossed. The ministry sent out a directive in May asking state governments to set up a committee which would oversee the acts implementation. Its been three months, but except Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, no other state has even bothered to set up the body, said director of MOHFW, Vinayak Prasad.
Maharashtra, in particular, was in for much flak for its poor initiative in tobacco control. On the delay in setting up the committee, deputy director of health services (Maharashtra) said, Tobacco control falls under two departmentsthe health department and Food and Drug Administration which falls under the medical education department. We will work out details soon, he promised.
Ministry officials, however, werent as optimistic. They said they tried hard to rope in Maharashtra as one of the nine pilot states when they recently rolled out the National Tobacco Control Programme, but they received no response. This is unfortunate as Mumbai is one of the three metros that are to go smoke-free soon, said under-secretary Bhavani Thyagrajan.