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

To address the issues concerning alternate
crops/livelihoods, strong partnerships
and collaborations are required to be
formed with the Ministry of Agriculture
for formulating policies to reduce area
under tobacco cultivation and facilitating
shifting over of tobacco farmers to other
alternate crops in a phased manner. The
awareness generation campaigns in the
tobacco growing states should include
sensitization and education programmes
for the farmers. The Tobacco Board
of India must be persuaded to bring
in requisite changes in their existing
policies to meet the obligations under
Articles 17, 18 of WHO FCTC. The efforts
to establish tobacco testing labs and a
regulatory mechanism must gain speed
to complete the work in a time bound
manner.
The monitoring of NTCP at various levels
needs to be strengthened by setting up a
workable mechanism for timely and regular
submission of progress reports.
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About the Author
Dr. Jagdish Kaur is Chief Medical Officer,
Directorate General of CGHS, Ministry of Health
& Family Welfare, Government of India
(Disclaimer – the views expressed by the author are her own, and not necessarily of the department)