Smoking Ban

A great stunt was shown by our honorable Health Minister Mr Anbumani Ramadoss by banning smoking at so called public places on 02nd October 2008. The note further stated that the ban is effective from 02nd October 2008 and the offenders will be fined between Rs 200 to Rs 600. All the news channels were airing the Ban related articled the whole day. They created a view like INDIA will be a smoking free country from day one. In my point of view if our health is really interested in making INDIA a smoke free country then he must have taken some solid stand in banning the production of Cigarettes in India. Yes I agree that leads to lot many unemployment. Why don’t you have a rule stating only for exports we produce ciggarates and not for use in INDIA?

These guys will never take such aggressive decisions as it will directly affect the revenue of the country as well as some big shots. I remember they imposed such a ban some time before on the PAN products and the sales are still happening without any issue. Government should be firm and should put their foot down to impose such rules. It must be hard and strict in imposing such bans. Looks like that will never happen, then what is the purpose in bringing up such rules and having it only in papers.

I had these things in my mind for quite a long time and the information that I read today forced me to write this blog. Looks like the health ministry of Tamilnadu announced that a total of Rs 1.20,000 has been collected as penalty from the people who violated the smoking ban. In a state which has got population of around 7 crore people and after 14 days of ban they have collected only Rs 1,20,000. Which means they have penalized only (1,20,000 / 14) 600 smokers who had violated the rule. Ie.. around 42 persons a day. This is really funny. Do you think it is realistic? Does it mean in the whole Tamilnadu only 42 persons a day are violating the rule. If you are a smoker you can easily figure it out…