Tobacco and Political Concerns

Tobacco kills approximately six million people globally and over one million adults in India each year. In India, a comprehensive tobacco control law the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) 2003 exists. However, the implementation remains sub-optimal. COTPA has worked in some places/contexts/settings and not in others. From a policy and implementation perspective, it is crucial to systematically understand how and why the implementation of this law has occurred. By doing this, we will improve our knowledge of implementing effective tobacco control policies (TCPs) as well as identify system-wide implementation bottlenecks that could affect other sectors like pharmaceutical/food. I aim to improve the implementation of TCP in India by describing and explaining the why and how of its implementation across Indian states. Some of the hypotheses include: a) Champions at either political or bureaucratic level facilitate policy making and implementation process b) Implementation is weakened when restrictive mandates are provided to departments who are not involved in punitive action. The study will be conducted in five phases using quantitative and qualitative methods to map implementation landscape and using theory-driven inquiry to draw lessons. The purpose of this seminar is to seek suggestions to improve the proposal and shape the work that I will be doing over the next 5 years as part of my early career India Alliance fellowship.