Government ‘hand in glove’ with tobacco industry

While India had signed up to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, it had failed to initiate even the first steps towards honoring the agreement, according to a story in the Times of India.

The Union government, mainly due to pressure from the tobacco lobby, had never seriously initiated policies aimed at ‘banning’ tobacco in any form.

“The government is hand in glove with the tobacco industry,” Dr. Prakash Gupta, an anti-tobacco crusader from Mumbai and the director of the Healis Sekhasaria Institute of Health Sciences, Mumbai, was quoted as saying.

Gupta was in the city for a seminar organized by the RST Regional Cancer Hospital on Sunday to mark the World Head and Neck Cancer Day.

“That is the reason why it has never let the Committee on Subordinate Legislation or COSL work and come out with its recommendations.

“How can you have people from the tobacco industry in the committee which is expected to frame legislations against tobacco?

“But despite the evident conflict of interest, representatives of this industry have always been there in the government decision-making bodies.”