Breaking New Grounds in Tobacco Control - Voluntary Health ...

spent nearly Rs.112 crore over a period
spanning almost five years till the time of
writing this article. A major share of this
spending was on the national level mass
media campaign. However, expenditure on
establishment of tobacco testing labs was
nil.
Other Initiatives to Support
NTCP
Some crucial initiatives for tobacco
control, funded by the WHO and other
partners under the BI (Bloomberg
Initiative) lent timely support to NTCP
and strengthened implementation of its
various components:
• Smoke free initiatives by the
UNION (International Union Against
Tuberculosis and Lung Diseses) were
supported in various cities including
Delhi, Shimla, Kottayam, Ernakulam,
Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Chennai,
•
Bhubaneshwar and Budgam. Sikkim
was declared the first Smoke free state,
followed by Mizoram.
A series of national and regional level
advocacy workshops were organized
during 2009-11 across the country to
sensitize law enforcers and stakeholders
from different departments - Agriculture,
Customs, Labour, Education, Forest,
Tribal, Health, Transport, Railways,
Police and Judiciary - emphasizing
enforcement of COTPA, FCTC and
•
implementation of NTCP at state and
sub-tate level.
Taking proactive action on the tobacco
tax front due to continuous advocacy
by civil society, 12 state governments
raised VAT (value added tax) on
different tobacco products during
2010-12, bringing in the commonly
used tobacco products e,g. bidi and
smokeless tobacco under this purview.
• WHO provided support for appointing
state consultants in 12 states
under NTCP, which strengthened
programme implementation and eased
communication between the central
tobacco control division, state and
district tobacco control cells.
• Training of staff, consultants and
•
state/district focal points under NTCP
was also upported by the UNION and
John Hopkins School of Public Health
(USA).
Civil society and NGOs, supported by
the BI were effective in monitoring
law implementation and kept a
watchful eye on violations and industry
actions.
Monitoring NTCP
To regularly monitor NTCP at state and
sub-state level, various tools were devised
to report violations and action taken on
COTPA provisions:
• Steering Committees under Section
•
5 of COTPA were constituted at the
national, state and district level to
monitor violations and take cognizance
of violations.
Regular review meetings for NTCP were
undertaken at the national and regional
level with support from Government of
India-WHO Tobacco Free Initiative and
the UNION.
• A Toll-Free National Helpline (24x7)
(1800-110-456) in collaboration
with WHO was widely publicised to
encourage reporting of violations.
• A process of regular feedback to
states was established with follow
up on action taken by the relevant
authorities.
However, lack of a consistent monitoring
mechanism and dedicated manpower for
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January - March & April - June 2012