For years, health activists and doctors have been advocating the rise in taxes of tobacco and in the recent Union budget, the govt agreed to this.

The increase in excise duty in the range of 11-72% for different types of cigarettes has been the steepest in a decade. With this move, govt taxes are projected to account for around 70% of the retail price of some cigarette types.

A smart public health strategy

The article published in the Lancet said that though the taxes haven't been increased for bidis, some experts feel that targeting cigarettes is a smart public health strategy.

Interestingly, the World Health Organisation's (WHO) theme for World No Tobacco Day (May 31) was also 'raise taxes on tobacco', which led the Tata Memorial Hospital to kick-start a campaign requesting govt health officials to raise taxes on tobacco products.

"This year, WHO has kept a theme 'raise taxes on tobacco'. This effort is to make all forms of tobacco inaccessible and thus curb the menace of tobacco-related cancers," said Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, head and neck onco-surgeon at Tata Memorial Hospital.

Almost 40% die prematurely in Maha due tobacco-related diseases

In the state of Maharashtra, according to Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), the total population that consumes tobacco stands at 2,58,99,273, of which 1,03,59,709 died prematurely due to tobacco-related diseases.

Oncologists working with the hospital say that keeping in account the cancer cases seen by them, 40% can be attributable to tobacco. "Tobacco kills every third tobacco user prematurely through cancer, heart and lung diseases, especially when tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death globally," said Dr Chaturvedi.

Alarming statistics across the country

Dr Chaturvedi also added that tobacco addiction is found to affect every third Indian adult and nearly every fifth Indian child.

Nearly 1 million deaths in India each year are attributable to tobacco-related diseases. The death toll is set to rise as the absolute number of male smokers is rising—from 83 million in 1998 to 105 million in 2010, according to data published by the Centre for Global Health Research in 2013.

Young men aged between 15 and 24 years accounted for the largest proportion of the increase in male smokers during this period.