Is the "Tobacco-free Gujarat" campaign a success?
1 Jun, 2013The reply to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed that fine collected for violating anti tobacco laws in Gujarat do not commensurate to the amount spent by the state government for campaigning against tobacco use.
The reply states that in 2012 only 6,159 persons have been fined in Gujarat for violating anti tobacco laws leading to a collection of Rs. 4.22 lakh. However, the state government’s expenditure on its anti tobacco campaigns in 2011-12 was Rs. 3 crore.
The applicant stated that not even a single person was fined in Bharuch, Dang, Gandhinagar, Jamnagar, Kutch, Porbandar, Rajkot and Vadodara but the cases of tobacco generated cancer is continuously increasing.
Citing that only 30,940 violators have been fined in past five years and a sum of Rs 25.7 lakh collected from them, the applicant alleged that the "Tobacco-free Gujarat" campaign has not been quite fruitful.