There is no shortage of cigarettes in the market due to closure of units, a spokesperson for the country’s largest cigarette-maker, ITC said.
“There are adequate stocks in the market,” the spokesperson told The Hinduwhen asked about the impact of the shutdown of all its cigarette manufacturing units since last week.
The company had announced on April 2 that it was being compelled to shut its cigarette factories with effect from April 1 to protest against the government’s decision to increase the size of pictorial warnings on cigarette packets.
It said that it will await clarity in the current uncertain state of the rules on health warning.
It shut down all its five manufacturing units across the country.
ITC is estimated to command a 70 per cent share of India’s sales of duty-paid cigarettes.
According to a statement issued by the Tobacco Institute of India the existing pictorial warnings at 40 per cent of the front of the pack were adequate to warn and caution consumers.
The Indian cigarette industry has been facing a continuous drop in demand because of high taxation and the growth of duty evaded by the sale of illegal cigarettes that do not carry pictorial warnings, thereby creating the impression that they are safer for consumers. As a result, legal cigarettes sold represent only 11 per cent of tobacco consumption in India, according to TII.
It also claimed that the warning size in India was much larger than the average of 20 per cent among the top five tobacco producing countries (China, Brazil, USA, Malawi and Zimbabwe that comprises nearly 90 per cent of global tobacco production) and the global average warning size of 31 per cent.
Moreover, the top three cigarette consuming countries, USA, China and Japan, between them accounting for 51 per cent of global cigarette consumption have only text-based warnings and have not adopted pictorial warnings.