The packaging of cigarettes, bidis and other tobacco products would be further changed to make health warnings — pictorial as well as textual — more prominent.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued a notification regarding the same that will come into effect from April 1, 2015.

According to the notification, at least 85 per cent of the package has to carry specified health warnings. Of this, 60 per cent will have pictorial health warnings — depicting mouth, throat and lungs cancers, depending on the nature of the product. The rest of the 25 per cent of the health warning area would be covered by textual warnings.

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