Gutkha pouches of different brands available at a market in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Jan. 13: The district administration has prepared itself to strictly enforce a ban on the sale and consumption of gutkha and other tobacco products here.

Officials began an awareness drive today to educate people about the ill-effects of tobacco and its products.

District collector Girish S.N. said a multi-disciplinary squad comprising officials of the administration, the Cuttack Municipal Corporation and the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar police has been constituted to enforce the ban.

“The squad will conduct raids in factories, godowns and kiosks selling gutkha and other tobacco products across the district from Monday,” said the collector, adding that the corporation will launch special drives in the city to seize the banned products.

On January 4, the state government imposed a ban on the manufacture, storage, sale and distribution of gutkha and pan masala containing tobacco or nicotine as ingredients under Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Regulations 2011.

Those violating the ban would attract a penalty of jail penalty of up to six years and a fine of Rs 10 lakh.

Odisha is the 15th state in the country to enforce the ban that is already in place in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Kerela, among other states.

“Though displaying gutkha packets in shops has been completely stopped, a complete check on the sale is yet to be implemented. The ban has only encouraged the black-marketing of gutkha,” said Kedar Sahu, a consumer.

Sahu said the price of single packet of gutkha, which used to cost Re 1 before the ban, now costs Rs 3.

“The shopkeepers are making good money,” he said.