Increasing tobacco price to help meet IMF requirements

The increase in tax on tobacco products is being seen as too little and too late as health activists have urged the government implement health levy on tobacco products to meet the criteria set by International Monitory Fund (IMF).

Malik Imran Ahmed, country head, Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, has stated that the government has been repeatedly talking about hard choices to meet IMF’s requirements. He said increasing tax on tobacco sector will not only help solve our economic woes but also benefit public at large.

Malik Imran mentioned that tobacco induced disease causes an annual economic burden of 615 billion which is 1.6% of Pakistan’s GDP. On the other hand, the revenue generated from the tobacco industry is 120 billion. When a product is causing this much health loss, a levy must be im-

ISLAMABAD

Staff RepoRt

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) carried out independent Quality of Service (QoS) surveys in 22 cities of Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well as 13 motorways and highways across the country to evaluate the performance and quality of services offered by Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) to their customers.

The survey results revealed that CMOs are compliant with respect to upload and download speed to a great extent, while network latency and webpage loading time was found below the threshold. Some of the Voice Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have also been found below the licensed threshold in a few areas, said a news release issued here on Monday.

During the survey, QoS KPIs of Voice, SMS and Mobile Broadband including Mobile Network plemented on it. Pakistan moved in this direction in 2019 by tabling a tobacco health levy bill but it hasn’t seen the light of the day due to continuous interference of tobacco industry.

Prof Dr Muhammad Zaman, the founding chairman of Department of Sociology at Quaidi-Azam University, said that steps are needed to discourage smoking among youth. Easy and cheap availability of tobacco products is discouraged all through the world. He added that Pakistan needs to follow the developed countries in putting a levy on cigarettes in general.

According to an estimate, tobacco products cause 170,000 deaths every year in Pakistan. On an average, Pakistani smokers spend 10% of their average monthly income on cigarettes. Due to cheap and easy affordability nearly 1200 children begin smoking every day in the country. A struggling economy such as Pakistan can’t afford this much loss of precious human and finance resources.

Coverage were assessed in accordance with Next Generation Mobile Service (NGMS) licenses and Cellular Mobile Network Quality of Service (QoS) Regulations, 2021, using state-of-the-art automated QoS Monitoring & Benchmarking Tool. The drive test teams selected survey routes to cover main roads, service roads and the majority of sectors/colonies in surveyed areas. Based upon the compliance level of each KPI against the threshold defined in the respective licenses and QoS Regulations, CMOs have been ranked between 1st to 4th position in Mobile Network Coverage and Voice Services for surveyed cities and roads/motorways. Similarly, in the Mobile Broadband Speed segment, the ranking is with respect to the highest data download and upload speed, network latency and webpage loading time. Necessary instructions have been issued to the operators for taking corrective measures to ensure improvement in service quality up to licensed standards.