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

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increasing the public health impact.
Given evidence of a marked switch from
bidis to cigarettes, higher taxes on all
length of cigarettes would slow growth
of lower length cigarettes which appear
to be displacing bidi sales.
Finally, the simplicity and transparency
of a high excise tax rate enables easier
planning of sales by the tobacco
industry. This will result in good
monitoring and less tax evasion by
tobacco companies.
Specific Recommendations
A comprehensive approach for tobacco
control would dramatically reduce premature
mortality, and raise, in the medium term,
Research 3
For the Millions
n 60
substantial revenue. It is recommended
that the Government:
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Implements a comprehensive tobacco
control strategy that uses price,
information and regulation measures
to curb consumption.
Adopt higher and smarter levels of
taxation, focused on a higher excise tax
rate on bidis and cigarettes, with annual
adjustment for inflation. These would
be paired with practicable strategies
to decrease tax avoidance and evasion,
while increasing transparency and
decreasing corruption. Modest action
on tobacco taxes in India might well
save millions of lives.
The Perverse Economics of the Bidi and Tendu Trade
Pranay G Lal, Nevin C Wilson, Economic and Political Weekly, January 14, 2012, Vol XLVII,
No 2, pp 77-80
Background and Summary
Tendu and bidi are considered the mainstay
of many rural economies. Despite its
profound impact there are few estimates
on the total number of bidis produced and
tendu harvested. Using back of the envelope
methods and data from forest departments,
the paper constructs the size of the total
tendu available for bidi rolling. Using
bidi tobacco produced in India, it derives
the total number of bidis produced in the
country. The difference between total bidis
produced and total tendu legally harvested
through forest departments, arrives at the
total illicitly harvested tendu leaves. As a
second level analysis, total number of tax
paid bidis are derived using excise data from
Ministry of Finance. The difference between
total bidis produced and tax paid bidis
derives the number of bidis that are untaxed.
The paper for the first time presents these
estimates and report on the black market
of tendu, bidi and untaxed bidis, which
together stymie public health goals.
The paper finds that The Union and state
governments do not have robust records of
tendu sales in state and lose out of revenues
through illicit plucking. These benefit
corrupt traders, local politicians and even
insurgent groups.
Illicit sale of tendu accounts for nearly
40% to 50% of the total trade. In 2007-
08 for example, only 310 billion tendu
leaves were legally available but near ly 605
billion bidis were made – which im plies
that about 49% tendu leaves were acquired
illegally by bidi manufacturers. The Global
Adult Tobacco Survey sug gests that nearly