BENGALURU: If there’s one certain thing keeping police personnel on their toes at VV Puram, it’s public smoking. With over Rs 20,00,000 collected as fine under Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act 2003 (COTPA) alone, the area in South Bengaluru has brought in the highest amount in the city. The second highest amount was collected at Mico Layout (Rs 13,90,000), followed by Chickpet (Rs 13,44,000). The total fine collected in Bengaluru was Rs 66,39,580.
Despite stringent rules by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to limit public smoking to designated spaces in pubs, restaurants and cafés, the issue continues to remain a common occurrence in several parts of the city. According to Section 4 of COTPA, a person caught smoking in a bus, at railway stations, cinema halls, hospitals, libraries, government hospitals, and other public areas will be fined Rs 200 by police.
According to residents, enforcement of COTPA occurs in spurts and the fines levied are doing little to curb violations. Some like Rajashree Shekar, however, point out that restaurants and bars should be made to allocate a designated smoking zone. “Some restaurants do not have this facility, so smokers don’t have a choice but to smoke outside,” she said.
According to VV Puram inspector Shiva Shankar, there were no particular hotspots in the area where they caught public smokers. “It was just implementation and effective use of the law. We required motivated efforts to catch violators and we charged them whenever they were seen by a cop in public,” he said.
The division, which comes under the west zone, was also appreciated by the additional commissioner of police (west) B K Singh. “Such enforcement comes from the inspector in charge of the station,” he said, expressing surprise over the fine amount collected. “There is more awareness in the area which is the reason why residents too have been making efforts to complain to the police,” he added.
