The anti-tobacco activists have expressed their disappointment over Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s failure to impose additional levies on tobacco products.
Anti-tobacco forum convenor Vasanthkumar Mysoremath said a “golden opportunity” to mop up some additional revenue to meet a part of the expenditure to be incurred on implementation of the guarantee schemes, had been lost.
He said that a levy of at least ₹1 per cigarette and ₹2 per bundle of bidis as “environment cleaning” tax could have been imposed on tobacco smokers. Such a levy was necessary to manage the “toxic, polluting, hazardous and non-biodegradable cellulose acetate filter ends and discarded residuary butts of cigarettes and bidis,” he said.
He said a levy of 10 paise could have also been imposed on every pouch of gutka and other tobacco products that are recovered from the streets.
In Karnataka, about 28 per cent of the population are either smokers of cigarettes or bidis or are in the habit of chewing and consuming non-smoke tobacco products, he said.
The remains of e-cigarettes and hookah waste were among the new polluting toxic tobacco products that need to be managed, he pointed out.
Imposition of these additional levies on tobacco products could have not only made smoking and chewing tobacco products uneconomical, but also reduce the air and atmospheric pollution, he said.
