 "Tobacco growers demand withdrawal of Health Ministry directive on warning on cigarette packs")
Illegal and contraband cigarettes do not carry any mandated health warnings thereby creating an impression that such products are safer over legal, regulation-abiding domestic products, they said in justification of their demand.
"This along with high taxes on legal cigarettes has led to quantum growth of illegal tobacco and cigarettes. The farmers fear that the larger graphic health warnings if implemented will further lead to increased growth of illegal and smuggled cigarettes in India, thereby affecting their livelihood," the farmers lobby group said.
They argued that none of the other top ten tobacco growing countries in the world has adopted such an extreme position on graphic health warnings. Even the United States, for instance, has text-based health warnings only on the side panel of the packs while China has text-based warnings covering only 30 per cent of front and back panels.
The federation alleged that in recent years, foreign tobacco has been capturing the Indian market, coming in through the smuggled route in the form of illicit and contraband cigarettes. Last year 21 million kgs of smuggled tobacco was consumed in India through this route while the consumption of illicit cigarettes are growing at 31 per cent in India every year, directly taking away the market from Indian tobacco farmers, it said.
Tobacco is an important cash crop especially in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Both the states had witnessed suicides by tobacco growers owing to low prices under the impact of a steep fall in demand. "The farmers have been demanding a change in lopsided tobacco control policies blinded by anti-farmer activists and urge an immediate correction," the farmers body said.