MillenniumPost
Bengal

5 Puja committees set up tobacco-free zones in pandals to spread awareness

Kolkata: Five Puja committees under Borough X in South Kolkata have set up tobacco-free zones to strengthen the anti-tobacco drives in public places.

They include Golf Green Sharad Utsav Committee, Netaji Nagar Nagarik Brinda, Samajgarh Sarbojanin Durgostav, Ranikuthi Regent Place Sarbojonin and Ajaygarh Bastuhara Samity. The initiative has been taken by Tapan Dasgupta, Trinamool Congress leader and chairman of Borough X.

The Puja committees have tied up with the anti-tobacco drive of the state government. The campaigners have urged the state government to declare all pandals tobacco free on the auspicious occasion of Durga Puja.

Tobacco consumption in India is alarmingly high and the country is the second highest tobacco consumer in the world. Public sensitisation programmes have been recently undertaken by an NGO in collaboration with the state government to make the youth aware of the ill-effects and to see that the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) is more stringently implemented.

Indranil Dasgupta, Programme Manager of the NGO, states: "We are grateful to Tapan Dasgupta, Chairman Borough X, to have joined hands with Tobacco Free West Bengal Campaign and declare five Durga Puja pandals tobacco-free zones. We also urge the youth of the state, the Durga Puja committees and various departments of the state government to come forward and support our cause by enforcing Section 4 of COTPA 2003 in all Durga Puja pandals to make it a tobacco-free Durga Puja. Each citizen of the state should come forward to stop any kind of tobacco consumption inside or around a Durga Puja pandal this year. Tobacco consumption is one of the most fatal habits of the nation. It is the leading cause of preventable death."

Tobacco Free West Bengal is a campaign launched by Tomorrow's Foundation. The main aim of the campaign is to protect citizens from the most preventable cause of death — tobacco. The primary focus of Tobacco Free West Bengal is to ensure the enforcement of COTPA 2003 by working in close association with the Health and Family Welfare and Home Departments.

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