Public smoking and gutka consumption have been prohibited in West Burdwan district of West Bengal from Friday.
A circular was released by district magistrate Shashank Sethi containing the order. A meeting was held with all relevant government departments, school teachers and professors on the matter before issuing the order. Such an initiative is the first of its kind in West Bengal.
The maximum penalty has been fixed at Rs 200. Hoardings and festoons will be used to spread public awareness, district officials said. Already 12 lawbreakers have been fined. Sethi said that he had plans to arrange awareness camps in order to educate the masses.
Chief Health Officer of the district, Debashish Halder said that smoking increases the chances of cancer even in non-smokers due to passive smoking, and thus efforts have been on to actually implement “no smoking” in public rather than keeping it just a legal provision restricted to government documents. Haldar added that people from all sections of the society must cooperate to ensure the order is successfully implemented
