THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Even as tobacco consumption rises to alarming levels in the country, Kerala is gradually winning the war against the giant killer. The state recorded the most decline in tobacco use for rural areas, a dip of 8.4 percentage points (pp) in households using tobacco between 2011-12 and 2023-24, according to a recent report by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM).
For urban areas, Kerala recorded a decline of 3.02 pp, and stood fifth in the country, according to the report titled “Rise in Tobacco Consumption and Policy Implications”.
Over the period under review, national average consumption rose by 9.28 pp in rural areas and 10.7 pp in urban areas. Of the 37 states and UTs, only three witnessed a decline for both rural and urban areas: Kerala, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Chhattisgarh.
Consumption of cigarettes and beedi, major tobacco products used in Kerala, saw a considerable dip in rural areas.
Households with incidence of cigarette consumption came down from 17.2% to 12.1% and beedi from 11.9% to 7.9%. Urban areas posted only a marginal decline -- from 15.84% to 14.83% for cigarette and 7.04% to 6.01% for beedi.
Consumption of leaf tobacco also declined in the state from 2.3 to 0.3% in rural areas and 0.71 to 0.37% in urban areas.
India witnessed an explosion in the number of households consuming tobacco, the report said. In rural parts of the country, tobacco-consuming households increased from 9.9 crore (59.3% of total) to 13.3 crore (68.6%) -- a rise of 33% over the same period. Urban India’s situation is even worse, as the number of tobacco-consuming households jumped by 59%, from 2.8 crore (34.9%) to 4.7 crore (45.6%).
“India stands at a crossroads. The government’s commitment to social protection and universal health coverage cannot coexist with an unchecked rise in tobacco consumption,” the report said.