Sale of tobacco products outside schools continues unabated in Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: The government’s Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) mandates ban on the sale of tobacco within a 100-yard (approximately 100m) radius around schools. Yet, according to a new study, of the 487 shops surveyed within this radius of schools across 20 cities in India, 225 were found to be selling tobacco products.

In Tamil Nadu, 68 schools were surveyed in Chennai, Coimbatore and Pudukottai, and 34 violations were recorded. In Chennai, of the 14 schools surveyed, investigators say 10 were blatant about tobacco sales, with the others selling it surreptitiously.



Chitra Prasad, correspondent of the NSN Group of Schools in Chennai, can vouch for that fact. Her schools have boards at 100 yards of the premises, stating they are tobacco-free zones, but petty shop owners are violating the rule. "When you ask them, they say they are not selling tobacco, but when I send my staff to find out under the guise of wanting to buy cigarettes, that’s when we learn the truth," says Prasad. She says she has complained to the local police, but no action has been taken.

"The mandatory warning display board was found only at four out of 34 points of sale," says Amarjeet Singh Panghal of Consumer Voice, New Delhi, which released the Tamil Nadu findings of the survey, Big Tobacco Tiny Targets, on Tuesday. "These shops target children as young as eight in Tamil Nadu through their advertisements near schools. Despite the fact that Section 77 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, additionally criminalizes the distribution of tobacco products to children," says Singh, who released the all-India results of the survey in January. The Chennai survey was done in collaboration with Consumers Association of India (CAI).

According to Dr A Somasundaram, state joint director for Public Health and coordinator for the Tobacco Control Cell, nearly 25,000 cases of violations have been found across TN since 2014. "We inspect the premises near schools with district level squads. We have collected `45 lakh in fines," says Dr Somasundaram, who was present at the release of the survey. The fine for each violation is `200.

The survey also found that sale of loose cigarettes is rampant at 88%, and an equal percentage of tobacco vendors were found selling snacks and confectioneries, products meant to attract children/youth to the store.

Singh says a ministry of health and family welfare advisory letter of 2017 recommends the licencing of tobacco vendors through municipal authorities. "This includes a provision that shops permitted to sell tobacco products cannot sell non-tobacco products such as toffees and soft drinks, which are meant for non-users – particularly children," he says.

Nirmala Desikan of the CAI says according to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, overall use of tobacco went up from 16.2% in 2009-10 to 20% in 2016-17 in Tamil Nadu. "Tobacco smoking usage rose from 9.6% to 10.5%," says Desikan, who is petitioning the government to get vendor licencing pushed through. "Nine states have done it. Why not TN?"

Although the survey was first conducted in 2017, a re-visit to the schools in October 2018, a month after the ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation advisory to urban local bodies for ensuring licencing mechanism for tobacco vendors, the shops were still there.