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 The panel, which has been criticized before by tobacco control
activists for apparent conflict of interest as one of its members
owns a tobacco business, sent a list of 32 questions to the federal
ministry in October.
It asked the ministry to explain which ingredients in tobacco cause
cancer and whether previous government surveys showed that graphic
warnings led to a drop in tobacco usage, which is linked to as many
as 900,000 deaths a year in India, the world's second-largest
tobacco producer.
Some questions cited concerns that larger warnings can hurt tobacco
farmers and boost illicit trade. That surprised officials as they
appeared to toe the industry line rather than focus on public
health, ministry sources said.
One federal health official said they thought the questions were
"almost identical to objections raised by the industry."
"The panel is playing into the tobacco industry's ploy," said
Shailesh Vaite, a member of the Framework Convention Alliance for
Tobacco Control, a group of more than 350 global organizations.
Panel chairman Dilip Gandhi denied the panel had been influenced by
the tobacco industry, and said it expects to have a report on its
findings within 45 days. He declined to comment on the list of
questions sent to the health ministry.
Shyama Charan Gupta, a panel member who runs a company that makes
traditional hand-rolled "beedi" cigarettes, said he has recused
himself from the issue of tobacco warnings. He remains on the panel,
which scrutinizes several other regulations.
The Tobacco Institute of India (TII) - which represents hundreds of
local manufacturers in India's $6 billion cigarette market as well
as bigger firms such as ITC Ltd, part-owned by British American
Tobacco Plc - said it held talks with the parliamentary panel in
July.
"Regulatory impositions adversely impact the livelihood of farmers,
the legal cigarette business," said Syed Mahmood Ahmad, director of
the TII.
The group did not comment on the panel's questions to the ministry,
but has previously said bigger packaging warnings are "unreasonable"
and "impractical". ITC declined to comment.
The health ministry first proposed in October 2014 that 85 percent
of a cigarette packet's surface area should carry health warnings,
up from 20 percent. That was opposed by the tobacco industry and put
on hold after the parliamentary panel said it needed to analyze the
impact on the industry. The move has also been challenged in courts.
The government has put the number of Indians using tobacco,
including smokeless tobacco, at around 275 million, and the TII
estimates the industry provides a living for 45.7 million people.
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India ranks 136th of 198 nations that use health warnings on
cigarette packs, according to the Canadian Cancer Society. Graphic
warnings appear to have yielded results in some countries. A 2013
study in Canada, for example, showed that smoking dropped by up to a
fifth after the adoption of graphic warning labels.
RISK OF DELAY
Such communication between the parliamentary panel and the health
ministry, which has not previously been reported, risks further
delaying the measures, activists and health ministry officials said.
The ministry has defended its proposal, and told the panel that
extensive research proves "conclusively" that tobacco causes cancer,
a review of the ministry's responses shows.
In one question, the panel said the proposed increase in the size of
the packaging warnings was "skewed", and it questioned how it would
cut tobacco use, especially among young people. It asked if there
was any research planned for "evolving" a less harmful tobacco crop.
The ministry said it believes all forms of tobacco are harmful and
addictive, and there is no safe level of tobacco, according to the
documents. It cited several studies in its defenses.
The panel also asked whether the ministry had data to show how many
cancer cases were directly linked to tobacco, and which were the
main harmful ingredients in it. In reply, the ministry said
cigarettes contain more than 7,000 chemicals, including nicotine,
tar and radioactive components.
(Reporting by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Ian
Geoghegan)
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