‘Gutka’ ban: What will happen to tobacco farmers, street vendors?

New Delhi: Ten states have banned a popular form of chewing tobacco in a major policy shift that may save millions of lives and strike a blow at the global tobacco industry, already reeling from new anti-smoking laws around the world.

But an estimated 65 million Indians use “gutka” — a heady form of chewing tobacco made of crushed betel nut, nicotine and laced with thousands of chemicals — and furious manufacturers are fighting to have the bans overturned.

Companies such as Delhi-based DS Group are dragging states to courts, complaining that the billion-dollar industry should be regulated as tobacco and not as food and that the bans threaten the livelihoods of millions of farmers and street vendors scattered from Bangalore to New Delhi.

Recently, Punjab became the 10th of 28 states to ban the sale of “gutka” after the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India reclassified it as a foodstuff, prohibiting the use of tobacco and nicotine as “ingredients in any food product.”

Some 482 million people   live in the 10 states which have enforced the bans.  Delhi, Gujarat and Chandigarh, with a combined population of    77 million,  are due to follow suit.

Madhya Pradesh was the first to ban the product, and Kerala, Bihar and seven others hopped on the bandwagon.

Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala went a step further by banning all smokeless forms of tobacco, including paan masala, usually sold as a mouth freshener. But it remains to be seen how well the bans are enforced.