No of males is 98% followed by transgender which is 5% of the total population & females which is 2%

Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute (University of Delhi, a unique postgraduate medical institute dedicated to research, teaching, and patient care in the field of chest diseases and Society for Tobacco Control celebrated World No Tobacco Day with great fanfare on World No-Tobacco Day at Pental Memorial Golden Jubilee Auditorium of Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute.

Apart from Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, the institute runs a center named National Tobacco Quitline Service (NTQLS), under the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India, which has been working continuously for the last 7 years in the direction of getting rid of tobacco and smoking addiction. In the year 2014 a world class meeting in China in which the Government of India selected Professor Dr. Rajkumar for representation who has been working for the last 20 years in the direction of getting rid of tobacco and smoking addiction.

India’s first Quit Line Service was been established at Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute and launched by Union Health Minister Hon’ble Shri Jai Prakash Nadda on 30 May 2016. A toll-free number 1800112356 was also issued, which mandated all tobacco products to be printed with statutory warnings as per the order of the Central Government.

The National Tobacco Cessation Service (NTQLS) was started in one room with 6 counselor stations which was expanded in the year 2020 by the Union Minister of State for Health Shri Ashwani Choubey. At present the number of counselors and other staff has increased and the total number of persons is 64, who serve in two shifts from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm. A total number of 7139473 people hit the IVR of this center this year till 30th April 2023, in which 2043227 calls were counselled, out of which 996302 inbound calls and 2680657 and 391160 outbound calls were registered by the call centre, 156644 are the people who completed have given up tobacco use. The statistics show that most of these calls come from Uttar Pradesh whose number is 123508. The data shows that the number of males is 98% which is the highest followed by transgender which is 5% of the total population and the lowest number is females which is 2%. Whereas 10th pass children are among the maximum consumers of tobacco whose number is 174097.

Seeing the success of this center, the Ministry of Health, Government of India has now started providing this service in 15 regional languages whose center is established in Delhi including Mumbai, Bangalore, Guwahati. People from India’s neighboring countries Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan etc. have also taken training from us.

Professor Jagdish Kaur, Professor Vipin Aggarwal, Professor Rama, Professor Savita Roy, Professor Manoj Khanna, Professor Manoj Sinha, and Professor Praveen Garg participated in the World No Tobacco Day program is also the Principal Investigator of the service. He welcomed all the guests and lighting the lamp told how he was inspired to quit smoking and tobacco. The staff working in the National Tobacco Cessation Service performed a beautiful play based on We Need Food, Not Tobacco. During a conversation with journalists, he said that I would like to work with only two objectives first, those who have not started should not start second, those who have started by mistake should quit and to quit, if you need any kind of help to quit, we are ready, our team is also ready, we have a quit line, this is my request to all my principals.