Click to play videoGuwahati: Today is World Cancer Day and in India, it's the Northeast region, that has a major percentage of the country's cancer cases.
The rate of tobacco addiction is on the rise as well. And yet cigarette and tobacco companies enjoy immense subsidies from the government under the Northeast Industrial policy.
Meet 26-year old Sanjeev Verma, a cigarette and Gutka addict for long, who is now fighting an advanced stage of oral cancer in Guwahati's Barooah Cancer Institute.
Sanjeev says, “My parents brought me to BBCI where we learnt that it was Cancer which is in the fourth stage.”
Sanjeev is lucky though as doctors feel he will recover. But others may not be as fortunate.
Research findings show that the Northeast has an alarming rate of addiction and the rate of tobacco abuse in particular, is high among the youth.
B Barooah Cancer Institute Director AC Kakoti said, “In 50 per cent of cancer cases in Northeast almost fifty percent is tobacco-related and in case of women it goes to twenty percent.”
Like Dr Kakoti, most experts attribute the high rate of addiction to easy availability of tobacco products. And the government policy in this regard has only worsened the situation.
Despite the all-time high in tobacco related ailments in the Northeast, especially cancer, cigarette and tobacco companies continue to enjoy subsidies under the Northeast Industrial policy.
As a part of this policy, the government has given 100 per cent fiscal incentives including excise exemptions to these tobacco giants.
"You will be surprised to know that in Guwahati alone more than 12 lakh people consume Gutka daily,” Kakoti added.
The end result - cancer and premature death.
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