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New Delhi: Taking a tough stand, a notification was issued by India’s Union Health Ministry on Wednesday making it mandatory for cigarette companies to devote at least 85 per cent of the surface areas of cigarette packets on both sides to graphically and literally represent the statutory warning.
The notification said that 60 per cent of this space should be used for pictorial warning and the rest 25 per cent the health message which will have to be in English, Hindi or any other Indian language. The gazette notification amending Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008 will come into effect from April 1, 2015.
Presently, 40 per cent of the surface area on one side of the pack has to display the warnings.
According to international status report, India ranks a lowly 136 of 198 countries on cigarette package health warnings. With the new measure, India will join Thailand in the list of countries with the biggest health warnings. In Australia, it is 82.5 per cent and in Uruguay, it 80 per cent.
“I have specified that 60 percent of the space must be devoted to a picture and 25 percent to the legend,” Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said at a function to observe Global Handwashing Day.
The notification also contains four images, two each for packets of smoking and smokeless forms of tobacco. The government has ordered to print the pictorial warning in four colours with a minimum resolution of 300 DPI.
