BENGALURU: Chewing tobacco and spitting in public places has continued unabated, despite the state government banning the practice as a precautionary measure against Coronavirus. But violators go unpunished because of the lackadaisical attitude of health department officials. The state government banned the practice on May 29, inviting plaudits from public health experts, who hailed it as a move not only to safeguard the ‘aesthetics’ of the state, but also to curb the spread of COVID-19. But till date, there seems to be no significant progress in implementing the ban.
The health department wrote to all the deputy commissioners and superintendents of police directing them to implement the ban only on June 26, nearly a month after the ban came into effect. Meanwhile, cases both in Bengaluru and other districts of Karnataka are rising. Interestingly, due to lack of coordination, many of the implementing authorities are not even aware of such an order.
While health and police officials are busy booking those not maintaining social distancing and not wearing masks, chewing and spitting tobacco continues unabated, which may fuel the spread of Coronavirus. While the police are authorised to book violators under various sections of the IPC, many officers at police station levels were not even aware of such an order.
Two IPS officers in the city this reporter spoke to seemed unaware of any such order, but said “police had continued booking cases under COTPA, which also prohibits smoking in public and selling tobacco products to minors.” Supreme Court advocate K V Dhananjay, also an activist fighting for regulation of tobacco products, said the order of the state government merely prohibits the use and consumption of chewing tobacco products but does not prohibit their sale.
“It is an order that is dead at birth! It is impossible for the enforcement agencies to monitor the use of such harmful products in public when they are told to freely permit commerce (distribution, sale, etc) and still do something to curb public use. It is impossible for anybody to make any sense of this order. It does show that the government is passing such orders more as a pretence and has no public interest in its approach,” he said. “Studies have shown that a teaspoon of saliva of a Covid-infected person carries a trillion of those viruses - large and potent enough to infect any person that goes within the vicinity of the spit immediately or up to half-anhour after spitting,” he added.