This story is from August 24, 2019

Make Rajasthan schools tobacco free: Minister

Education minister Govind Dotasra on Friday announced that all schools in the state will be tobacco free
Make Rajasthan schools tobacco free: Minister
Picture used for representational purpose only
JAIPUR: Education minister Govind Dotasra on Friday announced that all schools in the state will be tobacco free. The announcement was made speaking at the concluding session of the 7th National Workshop on Implementation of MPOWER Policy at New Delhi.
The minister said, all schools will have to ensure that nobody brings tobacco products, including the staff members. This conference was organized by International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, South East Asia office located in New Delhi.
Dotasara said, “All government and private schools have to become tobacco free.
The education department will integrate monitoring of tobacco free with the Shala Darpan 'online portal' being used by all block education officers to report compliance." The defaulter staff will face the punitive action from the department. State has over 1.05 lakh schools, including 69,000 government schools. The health activists have been demanding from long to declare schools tobacco free. “The orders for the same have not yet received but it is likely that it will be issued in the coming days," said an official. The department had recently suspended one teacher for smoking in the school premises. He was caught by inspection team. Around 30 participants from various states participated in this workshop which included senior administrators, academics and public health professionals.
In the inauguration of the workshop health minister Raghu Sharma stressed on building more awareness on ill effects of tobacco products and the tobacco control initiatives has been appreciated by WHO and senior level administrative officials also came to the state to learn from best practices of Rajasthan.
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