Beedi manufacturers ass seek govt intervention

Chennai, July 2: With the sale of beedis declining by 40 per cent during the last three years, the industry employing about four crore people has sought government it intervention for its long term survival.

Five Beedi manufacturers associations have joined hands with the All India Beedi Industry Federation and organised a meeting here last evening to finalise their charter of demands to bring back the 150-year-old trade to its pristine glory.

The industry had decided to hold talks with the Centre and state governments to get their grievances redressed.

''If the talks did not fructify, the Beedi industry will launch a nation-wide indefinite strike by involving all the labourers, which will result in a loss of Rs 150 crores per day'', Federation president Rajnikant P Patel and Tamil Nadu Beedi Manufacturers Association president A M Ashraf told reporters.

''We will try to persuade the government to redress our grievances. Strike will be the last resort'', Mr Patel said.

''Per se the industry is not against implementation of the Tobacco control Act. But reserving 50 per cent space in the label for pictorial warnings and statutory warnings, including the design of the skull and bones, and mentioning the tar and nicotine contents, would mean increasing the size of the label itself. This will lead to increasing costs'', he said.

The said the beedi packet being small, the font size of the warnings can only be small. We have submitted samples of the design to the government for approval, he added.

Tamil Nadu employs about 12 lakh people in the Beedi industry, of which 90 per cent are women.

UNI