Smoking in public continues unabated in Bengaluru despite stricter enforcement by GBA

BENGALURU: Despite the ban, smoking in public places continues unabated. Though the Greater Bengaluru Authoritys (GBA) tobacco control cell has almost doubled its enforcement drives under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (COTPA) Act compared to previous years, the scenario on the ground continues as if there is no ban. Right from residential streets to main roads and from bus stops to markets, citizens complained that there is no check on smoking in public. Every day, from morning till late night, we see people sitting on the stairs of a building adjacent to our home and smoking. The cigarette and bidi smoke directly enter our homes. My two children are forced to be passive smokers. We reported to the local police, however, smoking continues and we are the sufferers, said a homemaker residing in Azad Nagar, who did not wish to be named. While this is the situation in residential areas, commercial areas fared even worse. There are multiple small and big offices on Cunningham Road. We see people smoking heavily round-the-clock. Given their brazen attitude, it gives the impression that the police and the GBA are hand-in-glove in permitting public smoking, said Suresh Kumar, an engineer. S J Chander, convenor of Consortium for Tobacco Free Karnataka, which is working on tobacco control in the state since 2000, said, In our country, when it comes to smoking in public places, both the educated and the uneducated behave the same. People know that they should not smoke in public, but the compulsive and addictive nature of tobacco makes it difficult to resist. Stating that the solution to public smoking must be multi-pronged, Chander said the GBA must strengthen penalisation drives and also ensure that tobacco vending is done only by licensed vendors. This way, there will be fear among vendors that if they allow their customers to smoke next to their shops, they would not only invite hefty fines, but if there are repeated violations, their vendor licence would be suspended, he added. Officials from the tobacco cell maintained that they have doubled the enforcement drives to prevent public smoking. From April 2024 to March 2025, we carried out 246 drives. For smoking in public places (Section 4 of COTPA), we collected Rs 3.54 lakh in 1,724 cases and for selling tobacco within a 100-yard radius of education institutions (Section 6 B of COTPA), we collected Rs 36,050 fine. This year, within 6 months (between April and September), we have carried out 272 drives. We found 727 people smoking in public places and collected Rs 3.47 lakh fine from them (as the fine amount has been increased).