M Sitharaman urged to raise taxes on tobacco products

New Delhi: Ahead of the Union Budget 2023-24, several non-government organisations working for the welfare of women and children across the country, have appealed to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to raise taxes on all tobacco products to protect the health of women and girl children. Women and child welfare organisations working in nine states namely Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, West Bengal , and Puducherry have cited several studies conducted both in the country and outside which show that tobacco usage by women in any manner is harmful to the reproductive health and affects pregnancy outcome, a statement said here on Wednesday. The risk of cervical cancer sharply increases with tobacco use and exposure to second-hand smoke from cigarettes, it said.
According to 139th Report of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare, on “Cancer Care Plan & Management: Prevention, Diagnosis, Research & Affordability of Cancer Treatment”, cervical cancer, is the second most frequent cancer among women between 15 and 44 years of age with a high death ratio in India, the release claimed.As per India’s National Cancer Registry Program and the last round of the National Health and Family Welfare Survey, female smoking rates were higher in those areas with higher rates of cervical cancer, compared to registries with lower rates of cervical cancer. It also noted that tobacco use is one of the most prominent risk factors associated with cancer, it said.
“There is convincing evidence from International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that use of tobacco use raises the risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix or commonly called cervical cancer in females. Not only active tobacco usage but even second-hand smoke increases the risk of cervical cancer”, reiterates Dr Guru Prasad Mohanty, Radiation Oncologist at Zydus Hospitals, Vadodara, while recommending to disincentivise the consumption of tobacco in the country.
In India, 28 per cent of the adult (age 15+) population currently uses tobacco products and of these 14 per cent are women as per the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS)-2. Non-smokers and women who do not use tobacco suffer from several health problems like cancer, lung diseases, and reproductive health problems caused due to exposure to secondhand smoke at home or in the public place.