West Bengal had not yet decided as to who will be the enforcing authority for the provisions of the Act and thereby also take legal action in case of any violation, alleged Madumita Dobe, secretary general, Indian Public Health Association(IPHA).
the state was yet to commit to a date by which Kolkata will become a smoke-free city, while Chandigarh had already become the first smoke-free city in the country in July 2007 and Delhi and Chennai had fixed a target date of 2010, IPHA claimed. Chandigarh police was enforcing the Act.
It has already been noticed in international surveys, that if television or cinema stars reduced or shed smoking, there was a direct impact on adolescent smoking habits within a month.
Usage of tobacco products and smoking went down by almost 16 per cent among teens, said Dobe.
The COTP Act was flouted and cigarettes and other tobacco products sold freely near schools together with rampant presence of billboards and other advertisements in these localities, Dobe pointed out.
More From This Section
India had around 60 crore people between 25 to 30 years who were vulnerable to tobacco addiction.
According to a survey covering 11 lakh households over a period of three years by Centre for GLobal Health Research (CGHR) and the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR), 70 per cent of the smoking deaths was in the age group between 30 and 69 and cumulated to a number of 7 lakh Indians including 1 lakh women.
Tobacco caused 10 per cent of the 10 million deaths per year from all causes and accounts for one in five of all adult male deaths and one in twenty of all adult female deaths in middle age.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), nearly one million Indians would die annually from tobacco alone by 2010.