NEW DELHI: Women lighting up in public places will now have to watch out as the Directorate of Health Services has decided to get tough with women smokers in the Capital.

Delhi is getting notorious for its fast receding age bracket for smokers and with the female population too registering an increased abuse of tobacco, the State's Anti-Smoking Cell has been under pressure to curb the menace at least in public places.

While the law prohibits smoking in public places and offenders are fined, officials admit that they have penalised only five women smokers from April to September this year.

All that is set to change with officials asserting they would no longer turn a blind eye to the fairer sex caught indulging in the act in public.

Emphasising that this time round they mean business with even the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare introducing more stringent rules to curb smoking, Delhi with this latest decision will become the first State in the country to get tough on women smokers.

"While the rules are the same for both male and female offenders found smoking in public, we haven't had too many women smokers who are actually caught and penalised. Last year we had five women who were fined but this time round we are keen on getting tough with women folk too. The number of women smokers in the city is growing fast and it isn't a healthy trend that we are noticing,'' said State Programme Officer of the Anti-Smoking Cell, Directorate of Health Services, A.C. Tripathy.

Adding that `getting tough' did not mean blind policing, Dr. Tripathy said it would be combined with education and awareness programme.

"We want to send out a strong message that smoking is not healthy. Also, we would be putting educational material on television and radio with special emphasis on smokers in jhuggi-jhonpri clusters."

Welcoming this latest move, Monika Arora, Director of Hriday Shan, a non-government organisation working for curbing tobacco abuse, said: "With more younger women taking up smoking early on in life and the taboo against smoking in public places no longer existing, stringent action is required to keep tobacco abuse at bay. There is strong evidence that suggests that women smokers aren't very good quitters and in the process they cause much harm to their body. This is a step in the right direction."

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