Polling booths for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections in Assam have been declared smoke-free by the office of the Chief Electoral Officer of the state today.
The CEO's office issued an instruction to all Deputy Commissioners/SDO(Civil)/DEOs in this regard asking them to declare all polling booths in the state as no smoking zones.
This was as per Section 4 of the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), 2003 which prohibits smoking in public places, the order said, adding since polling stations are public places, they come under the COTPA provisions.
The order instructed the officials to take appropriate action, including putting up signages as mandated by Section 4 of the COTPA in each polling station, declaring the area as 'No Smoking Zone'.
The Voluntary Health Association of Assam (VHAA), a leading non-profit organisation working in the field of public health in Assam, had urged the CEO of the state to prohibit smoking in all polling booths during the three-phase Lok Sabha elections from April 7.
On April 1, a VHAA team had called upon the CEO-Assam requesting him to prohibit smoking in all polling booths.
After today's decision, Assam became the first state in the Northeast region and third in the country to declare polling booths smoke-free after Jammu and Kashmir and Bihar.
"Issuance of a guideline or order by the CEO-Assam will not only help bring in awareness against smoking, but also protect people from the menace of secondary smoking, a major contributor of pulmonary diseases," VHAA executive secretary Ruchira Neog had said.
According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey carried out in 2010, 52.6 per cent of male and 25.3 per cent of female population in Assam use tobacco in some form or the other.
The prevalence of tobacco users in terms of urban and rural population was 40.6 and 39.1 per cent respectively, way above the national prevalence rate of tobacco users.
