Govt to adopt policy to ban bidi: Muhith

Finance Minister AMA Muhith today said the government will adopt a policy to ban bidi as a harmful product for the human body.

"Eighty percent of products in country's tobacco market are of low price and low quality. Of those, bidi is very much harmful to health," he told journalists after a meeting with the top tobacco companies, including British American Tobacco (BAT), at the Finance Ministry office in Dhaka.

Among others, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed and National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman M Noajibur Rahman were also present at the meeting.

Mentioning the demand of the tobacco companies to control the low-quality bidi, Muhith said both sides were talking about controlling the low price bidi.

Responding to a question about the possible impact of banning bidi on revenue collection, he said it will have no significant impact on the revenue collection.