Determined to continue with the efforts to curb the practice of smoking in public places, the Health Ministry plans to extend ‘The Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules 2008’ to almost all public venues, by ‘Gandhi Jayanti’ – October 2. Though parks and roads have been excluded from the banned places list, strict fines will be imposed at the places where smoking has been banned – and, the Bollywood movies too fall in this category!

If the drive is to be effectively administered, smokers will need to abstain from smoking in a number of places.. This will be quite like aping the West, thank heavens for once, where Tthe famous punch line, ‘I’d walk a mile to smoke a Camel’ has so sincerely been followed that smokers will find it difficult to find a designated smoking area for miles. Even cigarette advertisements, which were once the ‘in thing’, have been banned, ever since the iconic ‘Marlboro Man’ allegedly died of cancer.

Karnataka Health Minister, B Sriramulu, feels that a complete ban is quite unworkable, and extremely difficult to execute. He says, “Everybody knows it is very difficult to implement the ban. I feel it is impractical.”

According to him, the application of the ban in all public places would mean that implementing it would require imposing penalties everywhere. The minister’s remarks are quite significant in the light that it is the Health Ministry is the official authority for imposing and collecting fines for violations.

The Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules, 2008, notified on May 30, has specifically authorized the director of public health and the director of health services, along with nodal officers and focal points of anti-tobacco cells, to impose and collect penalties. Other officers with similar powers include Inspectors of central excise, income tax, customs, sales tax and transport and health departments, within their area of jurisdiction.

The newly notified rules withstanding, it will become imperative for owners, proprietors, managers, supervisors or officers in-charge of public places to ensure that ‘no ashtrays, matches, lighters or other paraphernaliathings related towith smoking’g are not provided in public places. Any failure in this regard would mean that the authorized officers will be responsible for the payment of all fines, comparable to the number of individual offences taking place in their designated area.

In response to a question about a practical solution to prohibit smoking, Sriramulu said: “We will do everything possible to restrict smoking in public places. But, these things take time.”