Monday, Sep 14, 2026 09:45 [IST]
Last Update: Sunday, Sep 13, 2026 16:42 [IST]
There was a time when Sikkim could proudly call itself India’s
first smoke-free State. In 2010, after years of sustained effort and
enforcement, the State achieved what many thought difficult. It was a landmark
public health achievement and one that Sikkim could genuinely boast about.
Today, that achievement is beginning to look like a forgotten promise.
Walk through some of our markets and public spaces and the signs
are hard to miss. Smoking in public, cigarette butts scattered on the ground,
people spitting openly, litter piling up and waste being dumped where it does
not belong. The problem is not merely that rules are being broken. It is that
we appear to have stopped caring.
Sikkim had a head start. The Sikkim Prohibition of Smoking and
Non-Smokers’ Health Protection Act, 1997, laid the foundation for a smoke-free
State. The implementation of national tobacco-control laws, awareness
campaigns, no-smoking signs and penalties helped turn that ambition into
reality. If it was possible then, why does enforcement seem so difficult now?
Second-hand smoke is not harmless. It exposes non-smokers to
serious health risks, while public smoking also sends a damaging message to
children and young people. A smoke-free status cannot survive on paper, on old
signage or on memories of past achievements.
But the larger issue is civic sense. No government can place a
policeman beside every litter bin, cigarette butt or public wall. Laws matter,
but so does individual responsibility. We cannot demand clean towns while
throwing rubbish on the roadside, complain about dirty markets while
contributing to the mess, or take pride in Sikkim’s progressive image while
treating public spaces as someone else’s responsibility.
The government must strengthen enforcement, impose penalties
consistently and ensure that public places remain genuinely smoke-free. But
citizens must also reclaim their responsibility.
Sikkim once showed the country that change was possible. We should
not allow neglect and complacency to undo it.
A clean, smoke-free Sikkim is not merely a government project. It is a reflection of how seriously we value our own home. Civic sense begins where excuses end.
