How compliant is Kolkata Metro to prohibition of tobacco advertisement, promotion and sponsorship legislation? A case study from India

Abstract

Background Indian youths aged 13-15 years, are exposed to cigarette advertisements on billboards, increased from 71.6% in 2006 to 74.4% in 2009 as revealed by GYTS 2006 and 2009. In West Bengal 28.6% of adults are exposed to cigarette advertising and while 31.1 and 36.2 percent are exposed to Bidi and smokeless tobacco advertisements respectively as showed by GATS 2010. However, COTPA, 2003 prohibits advertisement, promotion and sponsorship of all tobacco products under Section 5. Methods 4 Boroughs (cluster of 10-115 Municipal wards) out of total 15 have been selected randomly keeping in mind their location- i.e. South, North, Central and East for collecting samples. The sample size has been enumerated at the level of 95% confidence interval with 50% compliance rate while the design effect of the study was 1.0. The Epi-info 7 software has been used for the purpose. The data was collected with help of the checklist prepared by The Union. The focus was on the POS advertisements only. For documentary evidences to be produced before the Kolkata Municipal Corporation photographs of POSs were taken. Results 64.1% POSs in Kolkata display various kinds of advertisements. 39% POSs display board either with colour or brand name, but only 13.7% Boards are having health warnings on tobacco out of which only 19% is written in local language. 28.3% out of them promote tobacco product through attractive messages. 19.1% POSs have a full body tobacco advertisement. In 92.6% POSs, tobacco products are visible to the minors Conclusions The findings are justifying the immediate need of effective enforcement of Section 5 of COTPA 2003. he documentary evidences led to the writing of letter by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to 4 major tobacco companies to remove the POS boards.

Keywords

• WCTOH