HEALTH Check: Tobacco sachets up for sale at a shop adjacent to a school on Beer Chand Patel Path. Picture by Ashok Sinha

The health and the education departments have decided to start a campaign to rein in tea-chers and visitors consuming tobacco on school premises.

From now, smoking cigarettes and consuming gutkha and other tobacco-related products on school campuses will attract a penalty of Rs 200.

In a meeting between the health and the education departments on Saturday, it was decided that anyone caught consuming tobacco products on school campus would have to pay a fine of Rs 200.

The directive will be applicable for teachers, visitors and students at all government schools in Patna district.

Health department principal secretary Amarjeet Sinha said on Sunday: “Our aim is to make schools tobacco-free. Whoever it is, a teacher or a visitor, if caught consuming tobacco on school premises, they will attract a fine of Rs 200. A teacher found consuming tobacco would set a bad example for the children. We have stopped the sale of tobacco products within the 100-m-radius of schools. Now, we want to ensure that the school campuses are tobacco-free.”

Moreover, the children of classes VI to X would visit households to persuade residents not to have tobacco products. The children under Socially Useful Productive Work (SUPW) projects will do this.

Sinha added: “Under the SUPW project, students would visit houses to persuade people not to consume tobacco. The students will act as agents of change in the society. If children convince people not to have tobacco, it will leave a deep impact.”

Sinha said the motive would be to make more and more people aware of the harmful effects of tobacco.

He said persuasion is more important than regulations and legislations.

“We’ll ensure that people understand that tobacco is not good for health. If they take tobacco products, children will also suffer. Children easily get affected and do not think before using tobacco products. Once the grown-ups are stopped from having tobacco products, children can be controlled too. Moreover, if children don’t have access to tobacco products near schools or in the school, it will bring a massive change,” Sinha said.

Bimla Sinha, the principal of Government Girls’ Senior Secondary School in Gardanibagh, said: “We are yet to receive such an order in writing. It is a good campaign and we’ll ensure that consumption of tobacco products is completely banned. We have been prohibiting peons and other employees from doing so. We have a few male teachers who consume tobacco but we will ensure they are caught.”

Bimla added: “I’ll ask my employees to keep a tab on the visitors as well. The information on the anti-tobacco drive will be put up on the notice board. I’ll keep a close watch on the campaign.”