India's Health Ministry's September 2015 notification about the implementation of the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Amendment Rules, 2014 came into force on 1 April, 2016. The law calls for larger pictorial warnings on tobacco products.

With concerns about potential violation of rules by continuing production, ITC and Godfrey Phillips India Ltd, a partner of U.S.-based Philip Morris International, suspended their production from today. India's cigarette market is estimated to be worth $10 billion.

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The rule, which mandates that 85 percent of a cigarette pack's surface should be covered with health warnings - up from 20 percent - kicked in from 1 April 2016 after being delayed for a year. As per the government, tobacco products, if manufactured or sold without the mandatory 85 percent pictorial health warnings, can be seized and confiscated. Subsequent offences from the same company can leadi to fines and imprisonment.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in India nearly a million deaths occur annually due to tobacco and the economic burden attributable every year to tobacco-related diseases is so massive. The country is ranked 136 of 198 countries according to the international status report on Cigarette Package Health Warnings in 2014 - countries ranked after 143 do not display pictorial health warnings at all.

The top three cigarette consuming countries - the US, China and Japan who account for 51 percent of global cigarette consumption - have only text-based warnings (about 30 percent in size) and have not adopted pictorial warnings.

Despite having relatively lower tobacco use than India, countries like Thailand (85 per cent front and back), Australia (75 per cent front and 90 per cent back), Uruguay (80 per cent front and back), Brunei (75 per cent front and back), Canada (75 per cent front and back), and Nepal (90 per cent front and back) have large-sized warnings.

TagsCigarettes, Tobacco, Philip Morris International, pictorial health warnings, India, china, Japan, Thailand, World Health Organisation