The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Tobacco firms get more time to display pictorial warnings

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Wednesday, Jul 29, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Tobacco firms get more time to display pictorial warnings

Ramya Kannan

CHENNAI: Two months past the May 31 deadline for the display of pictorial warnings on tobacco packs, the government is all set to announce another deadline for complete compliance with the provisions of the Tobacco Control Act – August 1.

“We constantly get requests from tobacco companies to push the deadline further because they want to sell the old stock. So we allowed them to do that. However, now sufficient time has lapsed – a full two months – so we are ready to take up implementation in a full-fledged manner. August 1 will be a significant deadline,” V.K. Subburaj, Principal Secretary, Health, said.

Meanwhile, the State specified that stickers be spasted on old packs, which was followed by tobacco and beedi manufacturers.

State government health authorities said they were constrained from taking stringent action – levy fines or enforce imprisonment – as per the Act, since they did not receive the notification from the Centre.

Apparently, the Tobacco Control Act being a Central Act, a notification must be issued by the Union Ministry of Health under Section 20 for the State to initiate action against violators.

They hope that the notification would come soon. However, health officials have been conducting raids and seizing tobacco products that did not bear pictorial warnings on packs.

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