Following the World Health Organisation's theme for World No Tobacco Day (May 31), the Tata Memorial Hospital kick-started a campaign requesting government health officials to raise taxes on tobacco products.
In a press conference held at the hospital on Thursday, oncologists from the hospital said letters have been sent to chief ministers and finance ministers requesting them to increase taxes on all tobacco products.
"This year, WHO has kept a theme 'raise taxes on tobacco'. This effort is to make all forms of tobacco inaccessible and thus curb the menace of tobacco related cancers," said Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, head and neck onco-surgeon at Tata Memorial Hospital.
In the state of Maharashtra, according to Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) the total population that consumes tobacco stands at 25,899,273 of which 10,359,709 died prematurely due to tobacco related cancers and other diseases.
The oncologists working with the hospital say that keeping in account of the cancer cases seen by them, 40% can be attributable to tobacco. "Tobacco kills every third tobacco user prematurely through cancer, heart and lung diseases, especially when tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death globally," said Dr Chaturvedi.
Dr Chaturvedi also added that tobacco addiction is found to affect every third Indian adult and nearly every fifth Indian kid.
Dr AK D'Cruz, director TMH, said: "The high tax on tobacco products in France and South Africa halved tobacco consumption in less than 15 years. According to data, from 1995 to 2005, France tripled inflation adjusted cigarette prices by raising taxes by 5% or more every year in excess of inflation, halved cigarette consumption and doubled inflation adjusted tobacco revenue."
Maharashtra in 2013-14 levied 25% value added tax (VAT) on cigarette, 12.5% on bidi and 25% on all other smokeless forms of tobacco. On the other hand Rajasthan stood out as the state which imposed 65% on all forms of tobacco uniformly and it is the only state which levied maximum VAT on tobacco among all the states in the country.
According to experts, over 100 studies have cogently established that raising taxes is not just the most effective way of controlling spread of tobacco but, also double the revenue for the governments.
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