Compliance With Higher Education-Related Tobacco Control Law Provisions by Institutions of National Importance in India

Introduction India formulated an anti-tobacco and anti-smoking law in 2003 in response to its resolutions in the United Nations' bodies. This law has been detailed subsequently to make it focussed on educational institutions, which are supposed to perform on-ground action in a decentralized manner. The first step is to put up signboards prohibiting the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products within 100 yards, the second is prohibiting smoking within the campus, and the third is implementing the law related to collecting fines from the offenders as well as the presence of vendors within 100 yards. Additional information on awareness activities was also sought. The focus of this paper is on India’s premier educational institutions called the "Institutions of National Importance" by the Indian legislature. These are India’s premier public institutions which have the maximum focus of the Indian government by making them of high quality, and non-compliance with the tobacco control law in these institutions should be taken seriously. Methods The paper checked for compliance with the Indian Tobacco Control Law in 79 of these Institutions of National Importance. The requirement for information to be collected from institutions was first derived from the legal act and the rules. Then, the Right to Information Act of 2005, India’s transparency law, was used to file applications for information, and certified information from the institutions was collected and reported. Results Only 39.2% of the institutions had the requisite boards prohibiting sales within 100 yards of the institutions. The requirement of having boards prohibiting smoking fared a little better at 73.4% of institutions complying but was not universal. A total of 43% of institutions denied the information pertaining to the collection of fines, either by not providing a requisite reply or stating that this was not part of the record. The information regarding the presence of vendors was not universally supplied with 65.8% of institutions stating the same to not in record or not within the purview. With respect to the awareness activities though, 72.2% of the institutions stated to have some awareness activity for tobacco control and cessation. Conclusion The results show an overall weak compliance with the law. India’s health regulators and educational watchdogs must implement anti-smoking and anti-tobacco laws strictly in Indian educational institutions as this is where young people are found. Something as simple as the installation of signboards by educational institutions cannot be overlooked by them. The law must become stricter with deterrence. This must be most intense in the Institutions of National Importance which form the premier institutions in India and become the role model for other institutions in India.