{"id":41088,"date":"2024-05-31T05:31:38","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T00:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=41088"},"modified":"2025-04-25T09:38:50","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T04:08:50","slug":"tobacco-consumption-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/tobacco-consumption-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Tobacco Epidemic in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Background<\/li>\n<li>Awareness, Legislative Provisions and Initiatives Taken by the Government w.r.t. Tobacco<\/li>\n<li>Challenges Associated w.r.t. Curbing Tobacco Consumption<\/li>\n<li>Way Ahead<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Background<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Tobacco is a major cause of preventable disease and death worldwide.<\/li>\n<li>It harms both users and those who grow it.<\/li>\n<li>With around 26 crore users, India has the second highest number of tobacco users after China.<\/li>\n<li>The health of over 60 lakh workers in the tobacco industry is also at risk due to skin absorption of tobacco.<\/li>\n<li>Tobacco farming harms the environment by depleting soil nutrients and causing deforestation.<\/li>\n<li>Processing tobacco requires a lot of wood, and its production generates a significant amount of waste.\n<ul>\n<li>Up to 5.4 kg of wood is required to process 1 kg of tobacco.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>In 2017-2018, the health impacts of tobacco cost India over \u20b91.7 lakh crore, far exceeding the \u20b948,000 crore health budget for that year<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Additionally, <strong>cleaning up tobacco waste costs around \u20b96,367 crore annually<\/strong>, not including the costs of soil erosion and deforestation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Awareness, Legislative Provisions and Initiatives Taken by the Government w.r.t. Tobacco<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC)<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Launched in 2005, the FCTC aims to reduce tobacco usage worldwide by helping countries develop demand and supply reduction strategies.<\/li>\n<li>India is one of the 168 signatories of the WHO\u2019s FCTC programme.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>COTPA Act, 2003<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>COTPA stands for Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply, and Distribution).<\/li>\n<li>It has 33 sections governing the production, advertisement, distribution, and consumption of tobacco.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP)<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>India also launched the National Tobacco Control Program (NTCP) in 2007.<\/li>\n<li>NTCP is designed to improve the implementation of COTPA and FCTC, improve awareness about the harms of tobacco use, and help people quit it.<\/li>\n<li>Apart from these interventions, <strong>tobacco taxation<\/strong> \u2014 a globally accepted method to effectively control tobacco use \u2014 is also applied in India.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Challenges Associated w.r.t. Curbing Tobacco Consumption<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Poor Implementation of Existing Measures<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Smokeless tobacco products often don&#8217;t follow the packaging rules set by COTPA, and smuggled tobacco products are poorly regulated.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fines for breaking these rules are outdated<\/strong>, with companies only facing a maximum fine of \u20b95,000 for their first violation.<\/li>\n<li><strong>COTPA bans direct tobacco ads but is unclear about indirect ads, leading to surrogate advertisements<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>These ads use products like elaichi to promote tobacco brands indirectly.<\/li>\n<li>For example, during the ICC Men\u2019s Cricket World Cup 2023, there were surrogate ads for two tobacco brands, endorsed by famous cricketers. These ads indirectly encourage tobacco use.<\/li>\n<li><strong>NTPC\u2019s Lack of Effectiveness<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>A 2018 study reported no significant difference in the reduction of bidi or cigarette consumption between NTCP and non-NTCP districts.<\/li>\n<li>Possible reasons for this included insufficient staffing, resource allocation, and utilisation, and lack of effective monitoring mechanisms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tax Evasion<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The Indian government&#8217;s attempts to tax tobacco have been hindered by tax evasion, such as buying tobacco in areas with lower taxes and illegal activities like smuggling, illicit manufacturing, and counterfeiting.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tobacco taxes in India are low and haven&#8217;t kept up with rising incomes, making tobacco products more affordable over the years<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>A 2021 study found that cigarettes, bidis, and smokeless tobacco products had become more affordable in the past decade, and the <strong>shift to the Goods and Services Tax system made these products even cheaper<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Tax burden of 51% for cigarettes, 22% for bidis, and 64% for SLTs, much lower than the FCTC\u2019s recommendation of at least 75% tax.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Way Ahead<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>India has strong laws (COTPA, PECA, NTCP) to control tobacco use and production, but they need stricter enforcement.<\/li>\n<li>Additionally, <strong>tobacco taxes should be increased to match recommendations, inflation, and economic growth<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The <strong>government can also help tobacco farmers switch to other crops, preventing job losses<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Studies show that crops like jowar can be more profitable than tobacco.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Up-to-date data on tobacco use is essential to counter industry tactics and effectively control tobacco. Without this data, efforts to manage tobacco use will fall short.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1. Which is the best soil for Tobacco?<\/h3>\n<p>A majority of the tobacco is grown on loamy sand or sandy loam soils with an available water-holding capacity between 0.7 and 1.5 in. of water in the root zone.<\/p>\n<h3>Q2. Does tobacco naturally contain nicotine?<\/h3>\n<p>While nicotine naturally occurs in the tobacco plant itself, some tobacco products contain additives that may make it easier for your body to absorb more nicotine.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/health\/the-tobacco-epidemic-in-india\/article68233803.ece#:~:text=Tobacco%20is%20the%20most,an%20estimate%20in%202016%2D2017\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The tobacco epidemic in India<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tobacco is a major cause of preventable disease and death worldwide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":41089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-41088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}