Ban on smoking goes up in a puff

New Delhi, May 3: The ban on smoking at the city's railway stations has turned out to be a total washout. Five days after the Delhi Governme...

New Delhi, May 3: The ban on smoking at the city’s railway stations has turned out to be a total washout. Five days after the Delhi Government issued the ban, smokers could be seen in full form at the platforms of the city’s stations. The order clearly stipulates that the ban includes railway employees, but the smoking community is clearly having its way with no restrictive authority in sight. “It is illogical to ban smoking in a big place like a railway station. Cigarettes are sold openly here. How can you expect people not to smoke?” asks an incredulous railway employee at the Old Delhi Railway Station.

Vendors selling cigarettes seem unaware of the ban. And in the absence of any clear directive, the officials seem confused as to how to deal with them. “We just can’t ask the vendors to leave overnight.”

Senior railway officials say that they are confused about the ban as no clear directive has been issued. Officials contend that they have not received any written instructions. “We have only readabout the ban in the newspapers. We had received a notice earlier that the ban has to be implemented from May 1. But there has been no fresh notice since,” says an official.

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At the New Delhi Railway Station, a stone’s throw away from the offices of senior railway officials, the official notice seems equally elusive and the awareness of a ban equally dim. For platform vendors selling cigarettes, it is business as usual. And according to the interpretation of some railway officials, the ban is only for smoking in the premises of the railway station and does not extend to evicting cigarette vendors. A senior railway official also confesses that they do not have enough manpower to enforce the ban.

Spokesperson, Northern Railways, Chandralekha Mukherjee, however, says the ban is well on its way to being enforced. “We have put up notices banning smoking at railway stations but no one has been booked for smoking till now.”

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