The additional Deputy Commissioner Sopore on Monday had a surprise check in one of its subordinate offices in Watergham where he caught three employees red handed smoking in office. The official imposed the nominal fine of Rs 500 as per the existing laws on all the three guilty to send a message across that smoking at public places is strictly prohibited.
It is certainly a good gesture and no employee or any common person shall be allowed to smoke not only in offices or at public places. During so many years the adminstration has been making public awareness programmes to ensure public places , public transport, government offices become no smoking zones. This effort of the government has certainly achieved positive results with a lot of awareness among smokers and the common public.
At some places if anyone is violating law, the public is itself dealing with the person and forcing him to stop smoking. However, it doesn’t means all is well. While the government has stopped creating mass awareness and enforcing laws against the violators, the nuisance is yet again emerging. The smoking at public offices is a common seen now spoiling the whole ambience.
Not only the smoking of these officials trouble the visitors, however, equally it is becoming nuisance for his colleagues. Similarly, there is one more nuisance that a non smoker has to deal with: the public toilets are always emanating odour and bad smell due to consumption of tobacco related products by both the employees and the visitors.
This problem is multiple times worse then what a common person suffers as a passive smoker. It deserves an attention from the government to derive a mechanism where this is controlled properly and ensure smoking is strictly stopped at public places and public washrooms.
