Government on Friday rebutted the controversial statement made by two BJP members of a parliamentary panel questioning the linking of tobacco with cancer, saying there was a direct link between the two.

Replying to a question in Lok Sabha, Health Minister J P Nadda also indicated that the government would go ahead with its decision to increase the size of pictorial warnings on the package of tobacco products."There is a direct relation between the consumption of tobacco and cancer... The ministry is consistent and crystal clear in its efforts to reduce tobacco consumption. We will go ahead once the panel submits its report," Nadda said.

His comments came as Opposition members attacked the government over the statements of two BJP members of the Parliamentary Committee of Subordinate Legislation that there was no Indian study to link the use of tobacco with cancer, triggering a row. Nadda also cited studies, including Indian, to buttress his point and rejecting the claims by the panel's head Dilip Gandhi and member Shyam Charan Gupta.

Government has put on hold its decision asking tobacco firms to introduce pictorial warnings covering 85 per cent of packaging for tobacco products after the panel urged it to wait till it submits its final report. The rule was to come into effect from April 1.

However, Nadda did not say if his ministry continued to stick to the earlier decision about the size of warnings or was open to make some changes. Replying to supplementaries, he said "the relative risk for death due to tobacco use in studies from rural India is 40 percent to 80 per cent higher for any type of tobacco use; 50-60 percent higher for smoking, 15-30 percent higher for tobacco chewing in men and women... Tobacco is carcinogenic.It is directly linked to cancer."