Noida: Tobacco control cell targets students in anti-smoking campaign

A workshop was organised on Wednesday by DTCC in association with Icancare (Innovative Cancer Care and Rehabilitation), an NGO, under the guidance of Dr Pawan Gupta, a cancer surgeon, who launched ‘Save the Youth’ campaign, for a healthy and tobacco-free Gautam Budh Nagar.

The district tobacco control cell (DTCC) and other agencies involved in creating awareness against tobacco use are going by the mantra of ‘nip it in the bud’. DTCC, in association with an NGO, has conducted campaigns in 34 schools, students of which took a no-tobacco pledge.

Dr Shweta Khurana, district consultant, DTCC, gave an audio-visual presentation on the national tobacco control programme. (Sunil Ghosh/HT Photo)

Over 100 schools in the district are to be covered under the national tobacco control programme.

A workshop was organised on Wednesday by DTCC in association with Icancare (Innovative Cancer Care and Rehabilitation), an NGO, under the guidance of Dr Pawan Gupta, a cancer surgeon, who launched ‘Save the Youth’ campaign, for a healthy and tobacco-free Gautam Budh Nagar.

Dr Gupta said, “It has been seen that people take to tobacco at an early age, during schooling and in college, and then find it very difficult to quit. As per a survey, 5,500 youth start using tobacco and tobacco products every day in India and 2,200 die due to this, every day. This is an alarming situation. We are targeting schools as it will restrict the number of future smokers,” he said.

The nodal officer for DTTC, Gautam Budh Nagar, Dr Bharat Bhushan, highlighted the provisions of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, (COTPA) 2003.

Dr Shweta Khurana, district consultant, DTCC, gave an audio-visual presentation on the national tobacco control programme. Dr Khurana said that besides conducting school programmes, 225 persons were penalised for unauthorised sale of tobacco and tobacco products, and around 2,000 daily wagers were counselled in 19 camps in the last year.

Sukriti Jain, senior programme officer, Voluntary Health Association of India, an NGO, gave a presentation on the enforcement mechanism on smokeless tobacco ban (twin packaging), surrogate ads and point-of-sale violations.

Chief medical officer (CMO), Gautam Budh Nagar, Dr Anurag Bhargava and additional CMO, Dr VK Dhaka, spoke about the ill-effects of using tobacco and tobacco products.