Awareness of smoke-free legislation (Section 4 of COTPA) among owners or person in-charge of the public places in Ramanagara City

Strong smoke-free legislation continues to be the most widely adopted measure for protecting people from tobacco smoke and to maintain smoke-free environment the owners or persons in charge of public places must be aware of Smoke-free legislation. The objective of the study was to assess the awareness of Smoke-free legislation (section 4 of COTPA) among the owners/person in-charge of public places in Ramanagara city, Karnataka State.

A Cross sectional study was conducted among owners or person in-charge of all the registered public places of Ramanagara city, using a protocol developed by the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use and its partners. The data was collected and compiled in MS excel and was analyzed using SPSS software version 20.0

Out of 184 public places, majority were educational institutions(35.3%), followed by restaurants(25%), government offices(21.7%), bars(9.2%), hospital buildings(6%), cinema halls(1.6%), railway station and City bus stand(1%). 115 owners/person in-charge participated in the study, only 42(36.5%) were aware of smoke-free legislation in public places and when asked about the rules under the law, majority (95.2%) of them said ‘No person should smoke tobacco in public places and majority (63.4%) of them said lack of awareness about the law was the reason for non-compliance.

Sustained awareness campaign among owners/person in-charge of public places about smoke-free legislation is the need of the hour and they should be educated about the harmful effects of smoking and the importance of smoke-free places.