Tag: India

Chowdhery to Head INNCO

Samrat Chowdhery
The International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organizations (INNCO) has appointed Samrat Chowdhery as its president, reports APN News.
A former journalist, Chowdhery has been spearheading tobacco harm reduction activities in India as the founder of the Council for Harm Reduced Alternatives and the director of the Association of Vapers India.
Chowdhery was honored with the “Advocate of the Year” award at the Global Forum for Nicotine in Warsaw in June 2018. In May, Chowdhery spoke to Tobacco Reporter about the vapor business in India.
“While harm reduction is a well-accepted intervention strategy in many fields, from addiction treatment to pandemic response, it is finding uncharacteristic opposition in tobacco use, which kills 8 million people every year,” said Chowdhery. “Our goal is to ensure consumers have a say in the framing of global tobacco policies as they are affected the most by them.”
A global body of 34 national advocacy groups with UN observer status, INNCO represents consumers of low-risk, alternative nicotine products, and promotes tobacco harm reduction at the global stage.
July 5, 2020
Andhra Pradesh to Intervene in Tobacco Auctions

Photo: Taco Tuinstra
The government of Andhra Pradesh said it will intervene in the tobacco auction to address pricing problems, reports The New Indian Express.

“In the next two [days] to three days, a special committee will be formed to solve tobacco farmers’ problems,” said Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on June 18.

In addition to fixing minimum prices for all tobacco qualities, the state government will require all licensed traders to participate in the auctions.

Nearly 20 million kg of low-grade and medium-grade varieties of tobacco, which account for most of the produce, have been rejected by traders this year. Growers also complained that buyers were staying on the sidelines. Of the 920 companies licensed to buy tobacco, fewer than 15 were participating in the auction, the growers said.
June 22, 2020
Karnataka Surpasses Tobacco Cultivation Ceiling

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
Tobacco growers in Karnataka, India, sold 106 million kg of leaf this season—6 million kg above the officially sanctioned 100 million kg for 2020, reports The Hindu.
Tobacco sales in the state were suspended in March due to the coronavirus lockdown and resumed on May 20. Auctions concluded this week across the four platforms in Mysuru.
To prevent overproduction, the Tobacco Board of India each year declares a maximum crop size. Excess cultivation is penalized with a fine of INR2 ($0.03) per kg and 7.5 percent of the sales’ proceeds. If the volume of excess tobacco exceeds 10 percent of the authorized crop, the penalty increases to 15 percent of the sale proceeds.
Javare Gowda, president of Karnataka VFC Tobacco Growers’ Federation, said this year’s average price of tobacco was INR10 less than last year’s INR136 per kg.
Anticipating a decline in demand due to the Covid-19 crisis, the Tobacco Board has lowered the size of next year’s authorized crop to 88 million kg from 99 million kg.
Referring to the collapse of tobacco prices in neighboring Andhra Pradesh—where farmers have been burning their bales to protest low auction prices—Gowda urged Karnataka tobacco growers to heed the limits set by the board.
June 18, 2020
India: E-cigarettes Widely Available Despite Ban

Photo: Ethan Parsa from Pixabay
Vapor products remain widely available in India eight months after the country banned them.
In September 2019, India prohibited the sale of vapor products to promote public health and prevent youth use (also see “Nipped in the Bud,” Tobacco Reporter, May 2020). “We immediately took a decision so that the health of our citizens, our young is not thrown at risk,” India’s finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, said at the time.
While leading players such as Juul have left the country, vapor products remain widely available today. People can still buy e-cigarettes on the internet or from any paan shop, according to press reports.
Most products on the market today originate in China and retail for less than the offerings of the banished Western companies did.
Samrat Chowdhery
“The only thing that the ban has changed is branded products are out of the market,” a seller who has been in the business for three years was quoted as saying.
“It is difficult to enforce regulations as nicotine is available in all other forms,” Samrat Chowdhery, founder and director of the Association of Vapers India, told Business Insider. “Formal players making e-cigarettes are exiting the market. Once black market industry gains a footover, it will be impossible to get control over it. The government missed a golden opportunity to tax these products.”
June 3, 2020
India: Health Minister Urges Ban on Tobacco Sales

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
India’s Union Health Minister Harsh Vardam on May 15 asked health ministers for all Indian states and union territories (UTs) to prohibit tobacco product sales and spitting in public to reduce the spread of Covid-19.
Vardam noted that smokeless tobacco users tend to spit in public places, increasing health risks, especially those of spreading contagious diseases like Covid-19, tuberculosis, swine flu and encephalitis.
“Use of smokeless tobacco also creates an unhygienic environment which further spreads the diseases,” he added.
“Large gatherings at the retail outlets where smokeless tobacco products are sold also pose the risk of spread of Covid. By banning spitting in public places, states and UTs can help in achieving not only Swachh Bharat [clean India] but also Swasth Bharat [healthy India],” said Vardam, referring to a 2014-2019 campaign from to improve solid waste management in India.
May 15, 2020
Nipped in The Bud

Photo: Milkos | Dreamstime.com
India’s ban on vaping comes with unintended consequences.
By Stefanie Rossel
A small but burgeoning product category was blighted when India prohibited the import, production, advertising and sale of vapor products in late 2019. The nationwide ban came after several states and union territories had implemented similar restrictions on electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS) in previous years.
“This was the culmination of a five-year effort to ban e-cigarettes, which began in 2014 when the central government set up three panels to advise on the way forward,” explains Samrat Chowdhery, founder and director of the Association of Vapers India (AVI). “The way these committees were constituted—staffed with anti-tobacco harm reduction [THR] tobacco control experts and government officials—the outcomes were pre-decided and all three recommended a ban.”
Since then, the government had been turning on the screws. Opposition by consumers and later the vapor industry delayed the process but failed to prevent Parliamentary action. “Because of this uncertainty from the start, the e-cigarette market in India grew haphazardly without the involvement of major industry players and much below its potential,” laments Chowdhery.
Reliable data on India’s fragmented vapor market at the time of the ban are hard to obtain. Euromonitor reckons that around 0.06 percent of Indians used ENDS in 2018—a figure Chowdhery calls “conservative”—up from the 0.02 percent the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated for 2016–2017.
With online platforms being the key purchasing channels, according to Euromonitor, the Indian vapor industry comprised mainly small businesses—retailers, wholesalers, e-liquid manufacturers and a few vape shops, according to Chowdhery. “Devices were not made in India, relying solely on imports from China,” he says. “Still, the outlook for the market was good, slated to grow at 60 percent per year until 2022, following Euromonitor’s India report.”
The devices available catered to middle-class and upper-class segments of the population, who are predominantly cigarette smokers in their 20s to 50s. “This is, however, not to say that vaping technology cannot work for the lower, i.e., bidi-smoking segment,” says Chowdhery. “Devices like the CE6, despite not being manufactured in India—which would bring their cost further down—were available at price points bidi smokers could afford. India is among the largest producers of liquid nicotine, which would allow e-liquids to be made quite cheap. If the industry was encouraged to innovate in this space, more price-friendly solutions could be developed. We did not see a lot of conversion from smokeless tobacco to vaping, though there are some instances. One reason could also be affordability as smokeless products are even cheaper than bidis.”

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Lost opportunity
Samrat Chowdhery
In its argument for a ban, India’s government took its cue from the WHO, which supports the prohibition of vapor products and neglects their potential for THR. According to government officials, the ban was enacted amid concerns of youth uptake of vaping—a theory refuted by leading health experts and not fully supported by population data.
India’s approach is hard to comprehend from a public health perspective, given the number of tobacco users in the country. According to the WHO, India is home to 120 million smokers, representing about 12 percent of the world’s smokers. Only China has more smokers. Most cigarettes consumed in India are bidis, hand-rolled, inexpensive cigarettes that contain more nicotine, carbon monoxide and tar and present a greater risk of oral cancers than conventional cigarettes. An estimated 1 million Indians die from smoking-related diseases each year, the WHO says.
In addition, India has about 200 million users of smokeless tobacco, including various forms of chewing tobacco snuff and tobaccos that are applied to the teeth and gums. The most popular forms are khaini, zarda, naswar and gutka. While generally perceived as being less hazardous than combustible cigarettes, these products present several health issues. According to a Business Wire report, India’s oral cancer rate is the highest in the world.
Tobacco, however, is an important economic sector in India, which is the world’s second largest producer and third largest exporter of leaf tobacco. The industry employs roughly 46 million people. According to the Tobacco Board of India, tobacco products contribute more than inr430 billion ($5.65 billion) annually to the government’s tax revenue.
Contrary to the situation in most countries where combustible cigarettes dominate tobacco consumption, cigarettes and bidis together accounted for only 8 percent of India’s tobacco market in 2018, according to Research and Markets. Nonetheless, cigarette smokers bear an overwhelming share of the tobacco tax burden in India. In the smoked tobacco segment, legal cigarettes accounted for around 10 percent of consumption but approximately 86 percent of tax revenues. Cigarette taxes in India are among the highest in the world. Statista estimates that revenues in the cigarette segment will amount to $13.78 billion in 2020.
According to Research and Markets, the cigarette market is dominated by ITC with a market share of 84.27 percent (2018). The Indian government has a 28 percent stake in the company. The situation in India is complex, according to Chowdhery. “The Indian government is a major shareholder in the country’s largest cigarette maker, ITC, which likely sees vaping as a threat to its established core business,” he says.
“Then there are influential tobacco control groups funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies and backed by [the] WHO, which hold a highly prohibitionist mindset. Smoking, primarily cigarettes, which are also the primary market for vaping products, generates a significant amount of tax, which the government relies heavily on. Further, awareness about THR is quite low, starting from the top as was evident from the low-quality debate in Parliament when the vape ban bill was discussed. These factors combine to make a powerful force against vaping, which will take some serious effort to counter,” says Chowdhery.

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Into a black market
In recent years, the AVI has been pushing back against restricting access to reduced-risk tobacco alternatives, Chowdhery says. “Our efforts are mainly in three categories: legal, lobbying and awareness. In 2016, we moved court against the vape ban in the state of Karnataka and over the next three years filed similar challenges in other states, which had the cumulative effect of delaying the ban for almost two years as the state machinery was forced to reverse positions and find new ways to implement a ban. More recently, we filed another challenge against an ad hoc order of the civil aviation ministry that has led to confiscation of vape devices from air travelers, despite consumption not being banned. We have also reached out to lawmakers to sensitize them to THR as an intervention strategy and have also launched public-facing awareness programs. A small study was done to evaluate the effectiveness and affordability of vaping for bidi smokers with encouraging results.”
He observes that morale among vapers is low in the wake of the ban, but resilience is building. While some vapers have left advocacy groups, others have become more dedicated to fight the ban. “There are some, especially those who had recently switched and were still on the journey to completely transition to vaping or those who do not have access, that have gone back to smoking,” says Chowdhery. “This is an extremely negative outcome. But there are also many who are trying to figure out alternative means. These are bleak times. The state machinery is in full swing to further demonize vaping and turn public opinion against it while the devices themselves are hard to find.”
The ban is likely to fuel an illicit e-cigarette market. When states prohibited vapor devices, some started importing vapor products under the “electronic products” category. Enforcement of regulations in India is weak—witness the difficulty authorities have had enforcing state bans on gutka, which is used by more than 25 percent of India’s population.
Yet there are key differences between the gutka and vapor business, according to Chowdhery. “The gutka industry is primarily run or backed by politicians or those with deep connections, he explains. “It was widely used before the ban so there was a large consumer base; it was not competing with another product, as vaping competes with cigarettes; and the gutka ban left loopholes that were easy to exploit: Gutka makers now sell the areca nut mix and tobacco separately, both of [which] are not individually prohibited. None of these hold for e-cigarettes. It is true, however, that enforcement is lax in India, and as long as there is demand, there will be suppliers to fulfill it.”
While the ban is recent, Chowdhery is already witnessing a change in market dynamics as established businesses exit and newer, smaller ones adapted to a prohibitionist environment take their place. “This is likely to continue for some time until a new structure emerges, which will also be influenced by enforcement actions and the willingness of the authorities to take them,” he says. “But if the experience of other low-[income] and middle-income countries [LMICs]—Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, etc.—is any indicator, it won’t be long before there is a thriving black market in India. Consumer interests, however, are not best served through this means as there is little control on quality, standards and prices.”
Missing the target
In 2017, India set itself the target of “relative reduction in prevalence of current tobacco use by 15 percent by 2020 and 30 percent by 2025.” With tobacco control focusing almost entirely on cigarettes, which account for only a small share of tobacco consumption in India, Chowdhery says it is unlikely that India will achieve its goal.
“It is evident that a vape ban is both a lost economic and health opportunity,” he says. “After the government ban on e-cigarettes, vapers have been forced to either go back to smoking or resort to a black market, both of which are detrimental to the nation’s health policies and the ban itself. One the one hand, 120 million smokers are deprived of an effective means to quit or reduce harm. On the other [hand], with no quality control over the black market, chances of vapers consuming tainted products and untoward fatalities in the process is a real concern.”
Chowdhery does not expect the situation to improve soon unless the courts intervene. The AVI is hoping regulators will allow for some “carve outs” from the ban.
“In the meantime, the gap between nations that allow or promote vaping and those like India that have banned it will grow in terms of smoking decline rates and tobacco-related mortality and morbidity,” says Chowdhery. “THR awareness, too, is likely to increase, and demonstration of vaping working for the poorer sections, the bidi smokers, could help convince policymakers of its benefit. Acceptance of THR in smokeless tobacco use, for instance snus replacement for gutka and khaini users, could help expand its application to smoking.
“The vaping ban is in place; it is a reality we have to accept, and overturning it will be a slow, determined process, though we do have encouraging examples from Canada and the United Arab Emirates, which revised their positions,” concludes Chowdhery. “But it is more likely that things will get worse before they become better as there is now a trend in LMICs, pushed by [the] WHO and Bloomberg Philanthropies, to opt for bans [rather] than regulations.”
Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.

May 1, 2020
Round one to e-cigarettes
The High Court of Delhi, India, has stayed the Central Government’s attempt to ban electronic cigarettes in the country under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, saying that these products do not fall within the Act’s definition of a drug, according to a story in the Bar & Bench, relayed by the TMA.
Two e-cigarette companies, Litejoy International Pvt Ltd and M/S Focus Brands Trading were said to have petitioned the court in response to a February 22 Communication from the Directorate General of Health Services asking state licensing authorities to prohibit the sale, manufacture, distribution, importation and advertisement of e-cigarettes and ENDS [electronic nicotine delivery systems] in their jurisdictions.
The petitioners argued that ENDS were less risky substitutes for combustible cigarettes and that the Government’s decision affected the right of consumers to choose e-cigarettes in place of cigarettes.
Additional Solicitor General, Maninder Acharya, submitted that since ENDS assisted smokers to give up their tobacco addiction, ENDS and all other devices fell within the definition of ‘drugs’ as defined under Section 3(b) of the Act.
The court observed that the devices were not sold as therapeutic devices so the Central Government did not have the jurisdiction to issue the circular.
The government has two weeks to issue its response and the case will be heard on May 17.
March 20, 2019
Enforcing tobacco rules
The Mysuru City administration in the Indian state of Karnataka is aiming to make the city tobacco- and tobacco-smoking-free by ensuring its compliance with the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) 2003, according to a story in the latest issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.
The authorities aim to enforce strictly COTPA regulations in respect of public transport, educational institutions and public places in general.
The story said that the sale of tobacco products was to be banned within 100 years of educational establishments, and that public venues would have to display prominently ‘no smoking’ signage. It wasn’t clear whether these were new requirements or, more likely, COTPA requirements that were going to be enforced.
In addition, restaurants and bars have been directed to remove designated smoking zones on their premises.
All the administration’s departments and the police were being urged actively to enforce the tobacco control laws.
There was no explanation of why the administration had decided to enforce the COTPA regulations at this time, after, presumably, they had previously not bothered to do so.
It was not stated when the city was scheduled to become tobacco- and tobacco-smoking-free.
March 1, 2019
Something to chew on
About 5,000 transport-service workers in Mumbai, India, have quit using chewing tobacco by switching to another, tobacco-free chewing product, according to a story in the latest issue of the BBM Bommidala Group newsletter.
The story said that more than 5,500 Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) employees had been found to be regular tobacco users, 90 percent of them chewing tobacco users.
The employees were mostly drivers and conductors.
BEST’s medical doctors reportedly switched the small boxes these drivers and conductors used to carry their mixtures of tobacco, areca nut and slaked lime for canisters containing a mixture of fennel seeds, cinnamon, carom seeds, clove and rice powder.
The replacement mixture was said to be devoid of the health risks associated with tobacco.
The result was that ‘nearly all’ of the drivers and conductors quit their chewing tobacco mixtures and, presumably, continued with the new mixture.
Doctors associated with the project said the new mixture worked because it mimicked the typical chewing-tobacco experiences of rubbing the ingredients in the palm of the hand and holding them in the mouth for long periods.
There was no mention of how, specifically, nicotine addiction was addressed; or, indeed, whether nicotine addiction was ever a factor.
The Ministry of Health is said to be seeking to replicate the experience nation-wide.
February 26, 2019
India sees export opening
Yesterday saw the signing of a protocol under which Indian leaf tobacco will be exported to China, according to a Press Trust of India story published in the Business Standard and The Week.
A statement by the Indian Embassy in Beijing said the protocol was signed by India’s Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan and Zhang Jiwen, Vice Minister of General Administration of China Customs, which is responsible for examining market access and quarantine issues in respect of India’s agriculture and allied products.
The revival of the phytosanitary protocol with China would pave the way for the revival of Indian tobacco exports to China and prove economically beneficial to Indian farmers, the statement said.
January 22, 2019