• March 29, 2024

‘Bidi baron’ on committee examining health warnings

Shyama Charan Gupta, who is described as a bidi baron, has been nominated to India’s reconstituted parliamentary committee looking into the issue of increasing the size of graphic warnings on tobacco packaging, according to a story in The Economic Times.

And citing ‘sources,’ the Times said that BJP MP Dilip Gandhi, had been re-nominated for the chairmanship of the Committee on Subordinate Legislation. Gandhi set off a controversy when he said that there was no Indian study that proved the link between tobacco use and cancer.

The committee is looking into a proposed amendment to the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008, which would increase the size of the graphic, tobacco-pack warnings from 40 percent to 85 percent.

The new warnings were to have come into effect from April 1 this year but the deadline was extended by the government because the committee was still looking into the issue.

Although the committee has been ‘reconstituted,’ all of the previous 14 members, including its chairman, have been re-nominated.