NEW DELHI: Taking a serious view of continued misrepresentation of gutkha ban through newspaper ads, the Health Ministry is mulling to penalise firms manufacturing smokeless tobacco products for violating key provisions of food safety law.
The Ministry, however, is yet to decide which of its department is competent to impose penalties on the violators of specific sections of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006.
"A call in this respect will be taken next week," Director of Tobacco Control in the Ministry Amal Pusp said today on the sidelines of a function organised by anti-tobacco groups to counter misinformation which these firms are spreading through ads by questioning the legality of gutkha ban by 14 states.
These states have enforced the ban in view of the recent Central notification which says tobacco and nicotine cannot be mixed with gutkha, which the Supreme Court has ruled as a food product.
The Ministry today came together with NGOs Voluntary Health Association of India and Public Health Foundation of India to launch a counter offensive against smokeless tobacco firms.
Led by Smokeless Tobacco Association, All India Kattha Factories Association and the Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative, these companies have been questioning the Health Ministry notification as to why the ban is imposed on gutkha and not on cigarettes.
The smokeless tobacco lobby is questioning why cigarettes are not being banned and claiming in their ads that four crore farmers would lose their livelihoods due to gutkha ban and that 14 states feel gutkha is less harmful than cigarettes.
Pusp said all these claims by the smokeless tobacco lobbies are in contravention of the FSSAI Act.
"Section 53 of the Act clearly says anyone publishing an advertisement which falsely describes a food product or misleads people on the quality and standard of food will be liable to a penalty of up to Rs 10 lakh.
"Section 23 lays down a penalty of up to Rs five lakh for anyone who promotes in any way a harmful product and these smokeless tobacco firms are using surrogate ads to promote gutkha, and are therefore liable for penalties," he said.
Asked when penalty would be imposed and by whom, Pusp said, "We are seeing who the right authority is to impose penalty, whether we should get the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India to impose it or some officer in the Food Safety Department in states."
No comments:
Post a Comment