Hyderabad: City Police Commissioner Anurag Sharma was, in his own words, a serious tobacco addict.“I had picked up the habit when I was posted in Nagaland in 1981,” he admitted, recalling that several attempts at kicking the butt failed as he would get back to smoking within a few days.After repeated efforts, he said, he had resolved on Jan 27, 1993 not to touch cigarettes again.“It has been 19 years since then and I haven’t touched one,” he said proudly.The commissioner was speaking at the launch of a month-long anti-tobacco campaign being conducted by the Apollo Cancer Hospital on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day here on Sunday.Importantly, the commissioner promised to do his best to ensure effective implementation of the Cigarettes & Other Tobacco Products Prohibition of Advertisement & Regulation of Trade & Commerce, Production, Supply & distribution Act (COTPA) 2003 in the city.C a n c e r s u r v i v o r s led by Apollo Cancer Hospital Director Dr P Vijay Anand Reddy, Dr T Subramanyeshwar Rao, Director, Indo-American Canc e r Hospi tal , Dr Ashwin Shah and Director - Oncology, Kamineni Hospital presented a representation to Anurag Sharma urging him to implement the Act in the city with immediate effect.They requested the commissioner to ban sale of tobacco within 100 yards of education institutions and make sale of tobacco to minors and similar violations of the Act a part of the monthly crime reports.GHMC Commissioner MT Krishna Babu offered 100 hoardings to spread the anti-tobacco message among the people in the city.
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