The Hindu 05.02.2010
‘No smoking’ drive to be stepped up in city
K.V. Prasad
COIMBATORE: The installation of signage with instructions to avoid smoking in public places will form a part of the efforts by the Coimbatore Corporation to step up its drive to turn the entire city into a ‘no smoking’ area.
“There will be 100 per cent coverage of all public places in terms of installing the signage. We are following the World Health Organisation guidelines to create a totally smoking-free city,” Corporation Commissioner Anshul Mishra says.
WHO mandates that there should not be even one instance of public smoking if the city has to be declared a smoking-free area. “When a survey is done, no case of public smoking should be found. And, no cigarette butt should be found on roads or other public places during the conservancy operations in the morning,” the Commissioner explains.
The cigarette butts will be evidence of people smoking at night in public places, suggesting some inadequacy in the enforcement.
Four special squads of the Corporation are on a continuous monitoring. “We hope to achieve 100 per cent success in one of two months,” says Mr. Mishra. Commercial complexes will have to explore the option of providing exclusive rooms for compulsive smokers in order to eliminate passive smoking.
Assistant City Health Officer R. Sumathi says the Corporation is so focussed on this drive that it has even uploaded on the Department of Public Health website the details of the crackdown on smoking in public places in the city. This is to assess the progress of the drive periodically.
