ISLAMABAD, Aug 6: The Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting has asked the health ministry to apprise the committee of the likely impact of relaunching cigarette advertisements on the state-owned electronic media, an official source told Dawn.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is striving to undo the entire efforts put forth by the health ministry through a campaign that resulted in the banning of tobacco advertisements on Pakistan Television (PTV).

However, the information ministry is facing stiff resistance from the health ministry, which believes that its entire effort to discourage the rising trend of smoking, especially among the youth, would go waste if the information ministry succeeded in its efforts.

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sheikh Rashid Ahmed during a May 25 meeting had told the standing committee that his ministry was actively considering to relaunch the tobacco advertisements on PTV to overcome the revenue shortfall.

However, the members of the standing committee, especially its Chairman Senator Nisar Memon, argued that the relaunching of cigarette advertisements would nullify the steps taken by the health ministry to curb the menace of smoking, the source claimed.

The health ministry representative is being invited by the standing committee to attend its next meeting scheduled for August 10 to apprise it of the impact of the policy being pursued by the information ministry, the source said.

In October 2003, the health ministry had managed to issue regulations and laws governing tobacco marketing under which tobacco advertisements on electronic media were phased out a few months ago. Due to these effort, currently the tobacco advertisement are allowed to be aired on the electronic media from 12:00 am to 06:00 a.m.

If the information ministry succeeded in getting through with its proposal and that too from the cabinet, then it would mean tobacco ads on the electronic media after 09:30 pm, soon after the PTV Khabarnama. The information ministry believes that it is necessary to save the state-owned television network from the current financial crunch.

After months-long campaigning and inputs from different health professionals, NGOs and other stakeholders, the government had promulgated prohibition of smoking in public places like offices, hospitals, educational institutions and transport and prohibited sale of cigarettes to minors and within 50 meters of the educational institutions.

Similarly, the cigarette (printing and warning) ordinance is meant to provide for printing of bold health warnings on 30 percent area of the cigarette packet.