Photo: Collected

DHAKA, May 13, 2025 (BSS) – Tobacco control campaigners, including researchers, doctors, and media professionals, have called upon the government to raise tobacco prices and implement effective taxation in the upcoming national budget for fiscal year 2025–26 to protect public health.

The demand was made at a press conference titled "Demand for an Increase in Tobacco Prices and Effective Taxation in the 2025–26 Budget for Public Health Protection," organized by Dhaka Ahsania Mission at the National Press Club, said a press release.

The speakers also demanded that the minimum retail price of a 10-stick cigarette pack be set at Tk 90 by merging the low and medium tiers, noting that the current price gap between the two is minimal.

As a result, when prices increase, consumers tend to shift from medium-tier to low-tier cigarettes rather than quitting, they said, adding, by merging and increasing the prices of both tiers, this substitution effect can be reduced, thereby lowering overall consumption.

They also said such a measure would also discourage youth from smoking and, in the long run, could help prevent approximately 900,000 premature deaths among young people due to tobacco use.

With Iqbal Masud, Director of Health and WASH Sector at Dhaka Ahsania Mission, in the chair, member of Health Sector Reform Commission Professor Dr Syed Akram Hossain spoke as key discussant). Dhaka University’s Department of Health Economics Professor Dr Shafiun Nahin Shimul, Journalist Sushanta Sinha, and Youth Forum member AFM Sadman Shakib also spoke.

Shariful Islam, Coordinator of the Tobacco Control Project of the Dhaka Ahsania Mission, said according to the recommendations, if the existing tax system on tobacco products is reformed in the upcoming fiscal year 2025-26, cigarette consumption will decrease from 15.1-13.03 percent.

About 2.4 lakh adults will be encouraged to abstain from smoking and about 1.7 lakh youth will be discouraged from starting smoking.

In the long term, it will be possible to prevent premature deaths of 864,758 adults and 869,000 young people.

In addition, there will be revenue of about Tk 68,000 crore, that is, an additional revenue of Tk 20,000 crore, which is 43 percent more than the previous year.

Professor Dr. Syed Akram Hossain said there are more than 2 million cancer patients in Bangladesh and of these tobacco is directly responsible for 30 percent of cancer.

The commission's report has proposed the introduction of a sin tax for all health-harming products, including tobacco, and spending it on health protection.

The Tobacco Control Act has been called for immediate reform. He believes that the government should do everything that can be done to reduce tobacco.