MARGAO
Representatives of various stakeholders from South Goa received specialized training on enforcement of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), as the authorities are bracing up to intensify anti-tobacco measures around the city schools
from August.
A similar workshop guided by Delhi-based experts will be conducted in North Goa for the benefit of the stakeholders from the district.
Come August and principals and headmasters of higher secondary schools and secondary schools across South Goa district will be involved in the demarcation of the boundary of the educational institutions to keep vendors selling tobacco products at bay. Right now, the vendors and traders are taking advantage of the fact that the school boundaries are not properly demarcated in many cases, defeating the very objective of the COTPA Act.
After the stakeholders received specialized training in the District Collectorate, South, officials from the police, Legal Metrology, Konkan Railway, airport authority, civil supplies, sanitation inspectors descended around the Collectorate-KTC bus stand to see the efficacy of the training and how to book erring traders and vendors.
It has come to light during the inspection that those running gaddas could neither produce the original license nor the proper trade license or the FDA license. “Such a situation makes it difficult to implement the COTPA rules for the simple reasons that the MMC cannot pass on the awareness on ban on tobacco products, especially relating to the provisions of section 4 and 6 of the Act,” informed GOACAN Convenor Roland Martins. He said today’s meeting also decided to include representatives of the Excise, Legal Metrology, Airport Authority and Konkan Railway as members of the District Committee constituted under the COTPA Act.
Replying to a query, he said that the authorities are bracing up for a concerted drive against sale of foreign cigarettes in the state, which do not carry the pack warnings, saying the vendors and traders selling such cigarettes can be booked under the Packaged Commodities Act.
