World Health Organisation (WHO) passed a Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 1986 urging the member-countries to implement measures to ensure effective protection to non-smokers from involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke and protect children and young people from being addicted to the use of tobacco. Again, in 1990, the WHO urged the member-states to legislate for strategy for tobacco

control. The United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank decided to initiate suitable measures for shifting tobacco crops to others. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) convened a tripartite meeting in Geneva on 24-25 February 2003, which recommended: “Government, employers and workers organisations should address the social and economic challenge that face the sector through social dialogue.”

The representatives of China and Cuba took a cautious approach in the meeting and expressed their willingness to act according to their national priorities. The Indian government led by the National Democratic Alliance enacted the Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisment and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act within three months, in 2003. No social dialogue took place before the law was enacted on 18 May 2003. The Act received the assent of the President on the 8 May 2004.


Hurried Move

What was the urgency to put in place a law so quickly? Even after signing the Convention, the government had three-five years to enact the Legislation. But the NDA government acted with unreasonable haste, without considering its adverse effect on the workers and without providing any alternative employment to those would be affected. The only argument pushed forward by a government spokesperson was that the cost of tobacco-related diseases in India was higher that the economic gains. The government overlooked the dimension of causalities causing every year by epidemics like diarrhoea, anemia, cholera and malaria. Millions die in India every year from these diseases, which outnumbers the number of deaths due to smoking.

Currently European farmers produce some 350 million kg of heavily subsidised tobacco a year (Tobacco News, July 2004). Industrialised nations have their own priorities. Should we not have reacted according to our national priority? Today our priority is to provide employment guarantee and ensure minimum living standard to all citizens as enshrined in the Constitution. The beedi industry is a highly employment generating segment in the national economy. Over 7.5 million workers are engaged in beedi roiling. Of them 80 per cent are women belonging in tribal communities, scheduled castes and backward communities. There are over 300,000 tendu leaf pluckers, who are tribales in the deep forests. Lakhs of farmers are dependents on tobacco growing. Would the government provide alternative crops to the farmers and jobs to the workers if the Tobacco Control Convention is implemented in India?

Another question, which demands answer, is whether the production and consumption of tobacco products, particularly cigarette, has decreased in the past 18 years since the WHO passed the Tobacco Control Convention. In reality, the production and sale of tobacco products have substantially increased during this period. The United Kingdom produced three per cent more cigarettes in 1998 though the number of workers went down by 75 per cent. (World of Work: ILO). The world consumption of tobacco products increased from 6.5 million tonnes in 1999 to 6.7 million tonnes in 2000 (Tobacco News, July 2004). The Food and Agricultural Organisation has also predicted an increase in tobacco demand. According to FAQ’s report, the world tobacco demand is expected to increase in 2010 to 7.1 million tonnes from 6.5 million tonnes in 1999 (Tobacco News, August 2004). The production and consumption of tobacco products have not been arrested following the Tobacco Control Convention where as the employment has decreased enormously in the sector. Certainly, this was not the motive of policy-makers while adopting such a measure.


Indian Scenario

In India, there has been a sharp deterioration in the tobacco and tendu leaf sector, affecting farmers, farm workers and beedi workers, not because of anti-smoking measures, but due to the growing presence of foreign MNCs. This has resulted in shrinkage of demand for Indian tobacco products. As the imported cigarettes have neither Indian labour nor Indian tobacco, this has resulted in largescale unemployment. Earlier, foreign cigarettes were in the restricted list of imports. Now, it has been brought into the open category with only 30 per cent import duty. This has led to largescale entry of foreign cigarettes affecting the Indian market. What the government should do is to put cigarettes on the restricted list of imports and raise the duty to 150 per cent as recommended by the World Trade Organisation. The government should also take measures to stop smuggling of foreign cigarettes in the country and stop the entry of MNCs in the domestic sector. The production of unlicensed cigarettes and beedi should also be stopped.

The trade unions always support social legislations. But some provisions of the Cigarettes and. Other Tobacco Product Act are discriminatory. The sections 7, 8 and 9 of the Act make it mandatory to depict nicotine and tar content on every package of the tobacco product, which is impossible in case of beedi. Beedis are rolled manually by the workers in their houses. It is not feasible to establish a laboratory to ascertain nicotine and tar content though it is possible in case of cigarettes. In practice, these provisions will promote cigarettes and hamper the indigenous beedi industry.