Minimum tobacco purchase age could rise to 25

India looks set to bring in additional stringent anti-tobacco measures, including a ban on the sale of single cigarettes, which, Bloomberg reported earlier this week, make up about 70 percent of the country’s cigarette sales.

The measures would involve, also, increasing the minimum age for buying tobacco products from 18 to 21, and eventually to 25.

According to a story in the latest issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter, the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has said that it is in agreement with the recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and that it is pressing ahead with the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Amendment) Bill 2015.

The committee’s recommendations include, as well as the ban on sales of single cigarettes and the increases in the minimum age, curbing the sale of certain tobacco products, doing away with designated smoking areas in, for instance, hotels and restaurants, and increasing five-fold the fines imposed on those caught using tobacco products in public places.

Other amendments would prevent people under the age of 18 from being engaged in the cultivation of leaf tobacco or in the manufacture or sale of tobacco products, and would crack down on any form of surrogate advertising of tobacco products, including those on social media.

The recommendations call, too, for the setting up of an ‘autonomous’ national tobacco control organization to implement and monitor the bill’s provisions, and for the use of special session courts to deal with contraventions.

The ministry has placed the bill in the public domain and is seeking suggestions from interested parties.