Increase in taxes, pictorial warning take a toll on tobacco consumption

Tobacco consumption over the last three years has been steadily declining. Tobacco consumption or use has declined from 60.97 million kgs in 2013-14 to 52.29 million kgs in 2015-16.

While tobacco consumption declined by 5.8% from 2013-14 to 2014-15, it declined by even more between 10.15% from 2014-15 to 2015-16.

This was according to information received from the Tobacco Board, Department of Commerce, the Flue Cured Virgina (FCV) tobacco used for manufacturing of Cigarettes for the last three years.

The reason for this decline in tobacco consumption is due to increasingly stringent laws being implemented by the government over the last two years. The prices of cigarettes and tobacco products have been increasing due to the increasing taxes implemented by the government during the last two Budgets.

Apart from this, the Supreme Court in May had ruled that the pictorial warnings on cigarette packs was recently increased to 85% from 20% earlier. This even resulted in many cigarette companies such as ITC to shut production for a few days.

However, there are several farmers in the country who are dependent on tobacco crops for their livelihood. For this the government has implemented some steps to rehabilitate these farmers and help them shift to other crops.

“As per information received from Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Agriculture, Crop Diversification Programme, an ongoing sub scheme of Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) has been extended to 10 tobacco growing states w.e.f. 2015-16 to encourage tobacco growing farmers to shift to alternate crops/cropping systems. An allocation of Rs 2,500 lakh and Rs 3,000 lakh as central share has been made during 2015-16 and 2016-17, respectively to diversify tobacco farming in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal,” said Jagat Prakash Nadda, Minister of Health and Family Welfare.