New Delhi: A mere written warning about the health hazards of tobacco products will not work any more.
The government has told tobacco producing firms to carry pictorial warnings depicting ill-effects of their consumption like cancer and painful deaths on all tobacco products — including cigarettes, gutka and bidis.
According to a government notification, all tobacco products manufactured after December 1 this year will carry health warnings. The government has notified the revised Packaging and Labelling Rule, 2007 under which the depiction of skull and cross bones as health warning has been removed.
Also, pictorial representation of a dead person has been replaced.
Earlier, it was announced that all tobacco products would carry pictorial warnings covering half of the package, displaying skull and cross bones and showing photo of a dead person who smoked.
Later, a GoM was set up and it was decided that skull and cross bones will be removed as this hurts religious sentiments of certain sections of the people. The pictorial warnings will show how its consumption can cause cancer, painful death and kill babies.
An estimated 250 million people consume tobacco which is the leading cause of all cancers in the country.
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