Former mayor to file PIL against Mamata’s ‘smoke more’ remark

Senior health officials said that the suggestion that smokers could help Mamata fill the mercy purse for the Saradha default bailout was dangerous. “It’s a dangerous thing to do in a city already reduced to a smoke chamber because of the government’s reluctance to act against polluting vehicles,” said a veteran oncologist.

The CM had announced a Rs 500-crore relief fund last Wednesday for the worst affected among the poor who had invested in the sham schemes of the Saradha group. Her instrument of choice was a 10 per cent additional levy on tobacco products and her appeal was to the puff brigade. “Apnara ei kodin ektu beshi korey khan,taholey taratari uthey ashbey (please smoke a little more these few days,then the amount can be raised quickly),” she had said at Writers’ Buildings.

An annual population-based cancer registry study conducted by a team of researchers at the Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute has indicated that cancer cases in Kolkata are increasing.

In 2006-07,the study had revealed that 14.9 per cent of newly diagnosed cancers among men were of the lungs. The rate of incidence rose to 18 per cent in 2008-09. In 2013,it is almost 19 per cent.

Among women,4.5 per cent of the new cancer cases are of the lungs,making it No. 5 in the list. The data was collected from 142 wards of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation,covering more than 10 million people.