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Rajya Sabha: Several members of the Rajya Sabha on Thursday asked the government to immediately stop advertisements promoting tobacco, alcohol and other intoxicating products.
Rajya Sabha: Several members of the Rajya Sabha on Thursday asked the government to immediately stop advertisements promoting tobacco, alcohol and other intoxicating products. The MPs said that deaths due to cancer and other diseases due to consumption of such intoxicants are quite worrying. He was speaking on the Central Excise (Amendment) Bill, 2025, introduced earlier in the Upper House. This bill proposes to impose higher excise duty on tobacco and related products after the abolition of GST Compensation Cess. BJP’s Sanjay Seth said that it has been observed that people from different walks of life be it men, women or children have started using tobacco and related products and due to which cancer, heart and lung diseases are increasing. He said that according to a report of the World Health Organization (WHO), about 1.35 million people are dying in our country due to these diseases.
Emphasis on awareness campaign
He said that if you see its advertisements, be it gutkha or liquor, they advertise in the name of soda or water bottles. Since advertisements on such harmful products (tobacco, alcohol) are banned by the government. They advertise in such a way that it gets stuck in people’s minds. Our government should stop such advertisements immediately. Agreeing with the views of Seth, BJP’s Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh, BSP’s Ramji said that there is a need to immediately stop all kinds of misleading advertisements secretly promoting ‘Gutkha’ in the name of ‘Pan Masala’. She also demanded that more awareness campaigns be shown on television, including versions of people suffering from cancer, to raise awareness.
Restrictions on celebrity promotion
Ramji said that there should be a complete ban on promotion of tobacco or other such harmful products by film actors and actresses. He proposed a mandatory license for those selling gutkha and cigarettes, similar to the requirement for liquor sellers, to discourage sales. BJP’s Govindbhai Laljibhai Dholakia, who began speaking on the subject with a Sanskrit verse, mentioned his drug-free export firm. He said that our company is Shri Ramakrishna Export. It has more than 7,000 employees. Today our company is tobacco-free. There is no one who suffers from drug addiction. I want India to become tobacco-free like this company. He further said that tobacco is the biggest cause of death among the youth of the country.
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