May 29, 2026
Bidis, small hand-rolled tobacco products, are the most commonly smoked tobacco products in India and are used primarily by lower-income and rural populations. Despite causing serious health harms, bidis are taxed at much lower rates than cigarettes, making them more affordable and accessible.
In his Hindustan Times column, Vital Signs, OHT’s Dr. Ramanan Laxminarayan writes that keeping bidi taxes low does not protect poor households. Instead, it contributes to preventable illness, premature death, and high healthcare costs that disproportionately affect vulnerable communities.
The article highlights evidence showing that bidi smoking is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year and imposes high economic costs on India. Common arguments against higher bidi taxes, including concerns about impacts on poor smokers, employment, and tax administration, are examined and challenged.
Drawing on 2025 research by the One Health Trust and partners, Dr. Laxminarayan suggests that increasing bidi taxes and removing tax exemptions for small producers could reduce daily cigarette consumption, prevent millions of years of life lost, lower healthcare spending, and generate trillions of rupees in long-term economic benefits. The evidence suggests that stronger bidi taxation would improve public health while providing the greatest benefits to the populations most affected by tobacco-related disease. “Evidence increasingly suggests that maintaining artificially cheap bidis is not a pro-poor policy. It is a subsidy for disease, premature death, and long-term economic loss.”
Read the article here.
