Ex-Indian Health Min. Vows Action Against MNC Involvement (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

               Tuesday 29 September 1998 

               Renuka threatens stir against lifting
               ban on foreign investment in tobacco
               firms 

               The Times of India News Service

               NEW DELHI: Former health minister in the Gujral cabinet
               Renuka Chowdhury has threatened a movement against last
               month's decision to remove the existing ban on foreign investment
               in tobacco firms. She says this makes a mockery of the official
               health policy.

               Till now there were no clear guidelines on the issue. Though the
               government was deciding the matter on a case by case basis, 35
               per cent was the upper limit for foreign equity in tobacco
               companies. Tobacco MNCs had been lobbying to establish
               fully-owned subsidiaries.

               A month before, a committee of secretaries to the Union
               government had suggested a 50 per cent cap. However, soon
               thereafter the government gave the green signal for 100 per cent
               holdings. Rothman's, the British tobacco major, has become the
               first beneficiary of this change.

               ``There are three million cancer patients in India, and the
Eighth
               Plan wanted tobacco culture to be phased out by 2000,'' argues
               Ms Chowdhury who has been active in a volunteer-health group
               back home in Hyderabad even after ceasing to be a minister.
               ``Most countries, including India, are officially trying to move
               towards a tobacco-free environment, restricting public smoking
               and advertising. When we're trying to sort one set of problems,
               what is the idea of letting more of the mess in from the back
               door? This is an excellent example of the right hand having no
               idea what the left hand is up to.''

               Ms Chowdhury also says that no other country in the world
               allows free foreign investment in their domestic tobacco firms.
               There are limitations on tobacco imports too. Foreign-held
               tobacco firms also don't help local farmers in case of a bad
crop.
               For instance, when much of Andhra's tobacco crop was spoilt
               earlier this year due to bad weather, the government got the
firms
               to pay a suitably higher price for the crop. ``Not one of the
               foreign firms bought. They bought the tobacco from Brazil, China
               and elsewhere where the prices were lower,'' she notes.

               India's annual tobacco consumption is worth Rs 200 billion of
               which the high-value cigarette segment is around Rs 10 billion.
               Beedi sales account for three-fifths of this figure. The beedi
               industry employs six lakh farmers and 40 lakh workers.

               Ms Chowdhury says MNC firms will obviously seek to expand
               cigarette consumption. ``When we are already struggling hard to
               give an alternate livelihood to these people, and not succeeding,
               why make it harder?''

              © Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. 1997.