Asst. General Manager,
VIJAYA BANK, Regional Office,
Panjarapole, Ambawadi,
AHMEDABAD – 380 015
To,
The Editor,
Business Line,
(Budget Wishlist)
Dear Sir,
Sub.: Ban Tobacco manufacturing, instead of just bringing some restrictions
With so many deaths happening due to tobacco consumption and the amount of medical resources being spent / wasted to treat the related ailment, there is no rationale to manufacture. Such tobacco manufacturers make huge profit on the unhealthy habit of large populace. Is it not robbing Peter and paying Paul, where general public is the Peter and the tobacco business owners are the Paul.
Owing to the irrefutable evidence of the killer quality in the tobacco products, in general & gutka in particular, there should be an effective mechanism to eradicate consumption of tobacco products, which means it has to be stopped at the manufacturing level.
Revenue generation through taxes / duties and employment alone cannot justify manufacturing / promoting / encouraging demand of harmful tobacco products. This is a short sighted policy with an eye on the prospects of tobacco industry and the tax/duty/levy revenue, but it loses the sight of long term health of the public in general.
This entails and results in spending lot of money material & medical resources on the treatment of diseases caused primarily by tobacco products. Thickly populated country like India cannot afford such a luxury of apparent pleasure resulting in actual medical expenses. In the Budget exercise, authorities can look for some other way for raising revenue.
Considering the resources wastefully spent on treatment of the deadly diseases, caused mainly by the consumption of tobacco items, the lobby of the tobacco industry and advertisement agencies should be squarely discounted, in the larger interest of Indian populace.
(R S RAGHAVAN)
28 6 09
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