Now your cigrate and tobacco packet have 85 percent area coverd pictorial warning of cancer.The requirement that 85 per cent of the display area of packets of all tobacco products should carry pictorial warning of cancer has come into force from Friday

According to the new rules, packets of cigarettes and other tobacco products will have cover 85 per cent of their area covered by pictorial warnings besides the text warning which has existed for long, said an official statement.

The notification requiring larger warning was made in September 2015. Until its implementation from Friday, the norm was 40 percent pictorial warning on packets of tobacco products. The implementation comes despite a parliamentary committee determining that the requirement of 85 percent pictorial warning is too harsh. The committee instead recommended 50 percent pictorial warning.

A delegation of the tobacco growers had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring the norms on graphic health warnings on cigarette packets in line with those prevailing in other tobacco-producing countries.

According to them, many developed countries including the US, Japan and China have only the text and no pictorial warnings on packets of tobacco products.

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