Govt to stub out smoking scenes

Scenes depicting smoking on television or in advertisements may now result in penal punishment, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Nov 7, 2006, 03:31:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Scenes depicting smoking on television or in advertisements may now result in penal punishment.

To make Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition) Act, 2003 more effective, the Union Government on Monday constituted a steering committee headed by Secretary Health Naresh Dayal to enforce section 5 of the Act. The committee has only one people's representative in Sachin Pilot, Member of Parliament representing Congress.

Others are Joint Secretaries from the Ministry of Health, Information and Broadcasting, Consumer Affairs, Director General Press Information Bureau and some social organisations.

Officials said the committee will decide on the cases referred to it and will also have powers to take suo-motto cognisance of any violation of section 5.

Earlier, the Health Ministry's decision to ban smoking in films had hit a roadblock with first the I&B ministry opposing the move and then film maker Mahesh Bhatt moving Delhi High Court against the move.

Thereafter, the government submitted a proposal in the high court stating that films showing smoking scenes should be certified as 'A' - only for adult viewing. The court has not decided on the issue so far.

With the constitution of the steering committee, the government has tried to make use of section 5 to check promotion of smoking. Different NGOs have claimed that smoking was increasing and death rate because of smoking was also going up.

Section 5, prohibits any sort of promotion of smoking that results in increase in cigarette sales in any form.

"The section is broad based and covers television content, advertisement in newspapers and roadside hoardings," said a Health Ministry official.

The punishment for violation of section 5 is enlisted in section 22 and 23. Section 22 says, violation of section 5 will result in imprisonment of up to two years and fine of Rs 1,000 or both. For second, offence the punishment prescribed is up to five years and fine of upto Rs 5,000. The section 23 allows the government to destroy the advertisements and content promoting smoking.

Email Author:chetan @hindustantimes.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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