India Announces New Health Warnings For Tobacco Products

The government has notified a new set of specified health warnings for all tobacco products such as cigarettes, bidis and shisha flavours.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has mandated a new warning to be printed on all tobacco products manufactured, imported or packaged on or after Dec. 1 this year to have a textual and image warning as specified on its website.

A new, second warning will come into affect starting Dec. 1, 2023.

The new warnings are more graphic than existing ones. Also the text will change from 'TOBACCO CAUSES PAINFUL DEATH' to 'TOBACCO USERS DIE YOUNGER' from December next year.

The new warnings have come into affect after the government made amendments to "The Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Third Amendment Rules, 2022”.

"Any person engaged directly or indirectly in the manufacture, production, supply, import or distribution of cigarettes or any tobacco products shall ensure that all tobacco product packages shall have the specified health warnings exactly as prescribed," it said in a press release.

The existing specified health warning will continue till Nov. 30.

Shares of ITC Ltd., India's largest cigarette maker, were trading 0.6% lower as of 11: 10 a.m. on Friday compared with a 1% gain in the benchmark Nifty 50.