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Written By: Agencies | Published : April 16, 2016 11:17 AM IST
Nearly four years after gutkha and pan masala was banned in Maharashtra, the Delhi government banned all chewing tobacco products, including pan masala, gutkha, flavoured and scented tobacco and kharra for one year on Friday. The Department of Food Safety issued a notification declaring that manufacture and sale of gutkha, pan masala, zarda and khaini packed or unpacked are prohibited for a year as these products damage public health. The ban came into effect on Wednesday itself.
'The said food products if consumed, endanger human health, the government said in its notification, adding that consumption will adversely effect the life of future generations. Read: Giving up the tobacco habit a cancer survivor s tale.
The government said that all such forms of chewing tobacco, whether packaged or unpackaged, sold as one product, or through packaged separate products that could be mixed by consumers, come under the ambit of the ban. Read: Ban on gutka, pan masala, khaini, supari can we finally say goodbye?
In July 2012, after the Maharashtra government had also banned gutkha products for one year, five gutkha manufacturers had challenged the ban. They argued that since gutkha contains only 6-8 % tobacco and has no nutritional value as such, it couldn t be termed under the food category.
However, it was also found that over 1000 samples of gutkha and paan masala, when tested revealed that over 98% of them flouted the Prevention of Food Adulteration Rules. It added that all the 84 samples analysed under the Food Safety and Standards Regulation, 2011 contained prohibited anti-caking agents like magnesium carbonate.
Despite the ban in Maharashtra on these harmful gutkha products, Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, a professor and cancer surgeon at the Tata Memorial Hospital and one of the most prominent anti-tobacco campaigners in the country, observed in 2013 that the gutkha ban was just on paper. We can only hope that the Delhi government takes steps to actually implement this ban and crack down hard on those who are still selling these banned gutkha and paan masala products.
Source: IANS
Image Source: Shutterstock
