IF WORLD’S TOP 3 TOBACCO CONSUMING COUNTRIES - USA, JAPAN AND CHINA HAVE 0% PICTORIAL WARNINGS ON TOBACCO PRODUCTS, WHY IS INDIAINSISTING ON 85% WARNINGS?
India’s Micro Retailers and Traders selling tobacco products demand review and urgent investigation into tobacco activism trail
• Retailers take protests to streets across the country
• Protest against being made the face and vehicle for delivering horrifying warnings to consumers
• Concerned that strong consumer demand will cause easy switch to smuggled and foreign products at the cost of legal Indian tobacco
• Appeal to the Prime Minister to take a moderate and balanced stand on the issue and give relief to retailers by quashing the undemocratic 85% warning rule
April 21, 14.12 PM IST || Pocket News Alert
Hyderabad, April 21, 2016: The micro retailers selling paan, bidi, cigarette and other tobacco products in the Hyderabad today joined the nationwide protests by the micro retailers selling tobacco products, demanding investigation into the motives behind the new rule to implement 85% graphic health warnings on tobacco products in India, and an immediate correction to the rule.
Pan Shop Owners Association of India, "Appeals to the Prime Minister to take moderate and balanced stand on the 85% Pictorial warning on tobacco products to protect their livelihoods"
Micro retailers are protesting under the aegis of Pan Shops Owners Association of India, which present the collective voice of the interests of more than 1.5 lakhs traders, retailers and panwallas, selling tobacco products across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Retailers are protesting against an uncertain and a livelihood threatening policy environment towards tobacco products and insistence to roll out 85% graphic health warnings in India – by going totally out of the way in comparison to how the most developed, the highest tobacco growing and the highest tobacco consuming countries have handled the issue.
Retailers are unhappy in being made the face and vehicle to deliver the horrific messages through products, which are the core of their bread and butter.
Speaking on the occasion, Sh. Rangaraj Shankar Rao, President, Pan Shops Owners Association of India, said, Why does the Government want us to be surrounded by horrifying pictures. These horrifying pictures will have huge negative impact on our psyche and can possibly disturb our peace of mind and drive us to become mentally imbalance. We totally disagree and deny to deliver such message. Please do not drive poor retailer to become mentally imbalance and criminals”,
“If USA, which is considered the epitome of health and democratic rights in the world have found graphic health warnings unconstitutional, then what argument does India have to push large, shocking warnings of 85% on tobacco packs? In a country with huge socio economic role of tobacco, large pictorial warnings is uncalled for especially when the rules have been framed in undemocratic manner”, he added.
Said,Sh. Satish Naik, President – Telangana State,Pan Shops Owners Association of Telangana, “We humbly request for a recall of the undemocratic rule of 85% warnings. These rules were framed without following a consultative process and these are inconsistent with the principles of legislation making. They were totally driven by the anti-tobacco lobby. Non-Government members of the Expert Committee which formulated these rules were all NGO’s and anti-tobacco activists, making the decision one-sided and biased.”
“ There are 45.7 million people dependent on the tobacco industry in India, including farmers, labour, workers and trade and no organization or individual representing their interest was consulted or heard when the rules were framed in 2014. There is more to this than what is visible, which needs to be uncovered”, he added.
It is a well known fact that today cigarettes are the most smuggled item in India after gold. There has been a rapid growth in smuggled and illegal cigarettes over the last few years. In 2015-16, the seizures of smuggled cigarettes have increased 10 times.
Unfortunately, some retailers and hawkers have resorted to selling various illicit, smuggled and illegal local and international brands of cigarettes to improve their margins and livelihood prospects.
The smuggled cigarettes do not have Graphic Health Warnings, and therefore the consumers also prefer them, as many of them believe that Indian cigarettes are more harmful. We fear, that lager Pictorial Health Warnings on tobacco products will make retailers across the country a target of consumer wrath and administrative action, as we are the front faces of the trade, who will get attacked from all sides.
If there are no domestic manufacturers, then all retailers would gradually be compelled to only sell smuggled cigarettes and illegal tobacco products, which will make them highly vulnerable to exploitation and penal action from local inspectors. We are being forced to put our future at the mercy of smugglers.
We appeal to Shri NarendraModi, Prime Minister of India, to take a moderate and balanced stand on the issue, and give relief to the tobacco retailers by quashing this undemocratic rule and uphold the democratic principles of legislation making in his Lok Sabha.
The tobacco retailer community is already facing threat because of continuous rise in taxes on tobacco products across states, which have hampered the livelihood prospects of us retailers, and the well being of our dependent children and families is under threat.
We strongly believe, that the implementation of larger Graphic Health Warnings is neither practical, nor is in the interest of either the consumer, the retailer, the farmer or the Government.
In case of products like Beedi’s and chewing tobacco packs, they are also not practical from implementation point of view, and it looks that facts of the trade were overlooked while formulating the rules. We urge your immediate intervention to stop the vested NGO’s and so called health guardians, who act under foreign influence from lobbying against Indian tobacco products and address our concern and problems.
We appeal to our Prime Minister to prevent the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare from setting a visible example of undemocratic legislation and should allow the policy be driven by the views of the foreign-funded anti-Indian-tobacco lobby, in complete disregard to the interest of millions of Indian stakeholders. We urge that collective views of all stakeholders must reflect in the rules on Graphic Health Warnings.