The 72-year-old talks to DNA on why the government needs to dissociate from the industry.
Sumitra Pednekar lost her husband Satish Pednekar, who was Maharashtra’s former home and labour minister to oral cancer in 2011, and has questioned the government’s contrarian policy on tobacco. She has filed a public interest litigation in the Bombay High Court seeking directions that public sector insurance companies cease investing in tobacco manufacturing companies. The 72-year-old talks to DNA on why the government needs to dissociate from the industry.
Isn’t consuming tobacco is a personal choice? How can a government policy help in the matter?
It’s a personal choice only if it doesn’t affect the family or people around you. It was not my personal choice or my daughters’, but we all suffered during my husband’s treatment, and later with his death. The government’s concern should be welfare of the people. It is obligated to formulate and effectuate a policy of explicitly distancing itself and its members from the tobacco industry. On one hand we have extensive tobacco control programmes like the National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP) and on the other, we have public insurance companies investing in the tobacco industry. This needs to change.
How change in government’s polices to bring down tobacco usage?
The government’s investment in the tobacco industry legitimises and promotes usage of tobacco. The whole country looks forward to the Union government for guidance and direction. Putting such distance will clearly establish that the said industry and its products are propagators of a grievous social harm. It has the power to inform and influence the choice that an individual makes.
How effective do you think pictorial warnings and imposing taxes on tobacco products are in bringing down addiction?
Tobacco is known to be 100 per cent carcinogenic. Pictures have a greater and immediate impact. Higher taxation helps, too. My father was a chain smoker. He was in the army and I remember him quitting the habit because he thought that higher taxes had made cigarettes unaffordable. Since the promulgation of the COTPA (Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act), our version of tobacco control laws, incidences of tobacco-deaths have perceptibly decelerated. Incremental additions to the taxation rates on tobacco products have also deterred new users.
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 "Sumitra Pednekar")
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