ISLAMABAD, May 31: The government is considering declaring all international flights and railway routes smoke-free and designating specific places for smoking at all international terminals and railway stations, Minister of State for Health Hamid Yar Hiraj said here on Saturday.

“I have already discussed this initiative with ministers of defence and railways, who have assured me that smoking will be banned on all flights as well as railway routes,” he said, while speaking at a seminar on “World No-Tobacco Day”, with the theme “Tobacco Free Film, Tobacco Free Fashion-Action”.

The seminar was organized at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in collaboration with the World Health Organization and health ministry.

The minister said: “We have also decided to declare the offices of the health ministry smoke free.” He also expressed the hope that other government departments would also adopt this initiative.

A WHO study suggested that Pakistan earned an annual revenue of Rs36 billion through tobacco products in the backdrop of 98,969 deaths due to tobacco use in 2000-01.

Globally, about 4.9 million people die annually and 13.3 thousand per day due to tobacco use. The speakers also tried to establish that smoking was a disease as it made smokers dependent.

The minister said a number of policies were in place to deal with almost every situation, but without community involvement, effective implementation was not possible.

He said it was difficult to change the life style of the people, specially those living in rural areas, who had no knowledge about health hazards and clean drinking water. Therefore, development is only possible through community involvement in important decision-making, he added.

Secretary health Ejaz Rahim said the budgetary allocations for the health sector in the next year would be Rs7 billion, out of which Rs4.4 billion had been earmarked for different public sector development programmes, including projects like behavioural change in the society. Projects like midwifery and prenatal care have also been recognized in the Public Sector Development Programme, he said.

He was critical of official media, saying it never played helpful role or showed commitment towards public health, though it was being run on public taxes, and over Rs100 million was being spent on different official advertisements. Still, the government had to pay for every minute to educate the public about health. On the contrary, the private media has done tremendous job in creating awareness about health.

The health secretary said: “Though, our growth rate is increasing and the economy is at the take-off stage, it will be of no use if we fail to translate this achievement into decreasing maternal and infant mortality rate and improving health condition of our people.”

He also suggested setting up of a public-private sector commission to monitor and scrutinize every single penny spent on health to ensure successful implementation of schemes.