50 Lakh fine, 5-year jail term for advertising fairness creams: Narendra Modi govt makes strong proposal

If implemented then advertisements promoting fairness creams, health drinks claiming improvement in height of children and products promoting antiageing remedies could soon be banned and even leave the violators to face jail terms.

Violators might be asked to pay a penalty of Rs 50 lakh and serve prison time up to 5 years.

The ministry of health and family welfare has finalised Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) (Amendment) Bill, 2020, which increases the number of diseases and disorders covered under the Act, reported Economic Times.

The draft amendment bans advertisements of products that promote fairness creams, enhance sexual performance, cure premature aging and greying of hair, improvement in height of children or adults, increase in brain capacity and memory, improvement in the strength of teeth and vision, change of foetal gender by drugs, reported the newspaper.

Meanwhile, netizens welcomed the move.

One Rohan tweeted: " Brilliant! And long overdue. Indians have some deep racial insecurities that reflect our colonial hangover. Fairness creams are basically racism in a tube, you can't change the colour of your skin man."

Another Abhinandan said: "Fairness cream adverts not only do harm by misleading viewers, but also have a very negative impact on peoples' psyche.. Great move by @MoHFW_INDIA under leadership of @drharshvardhan ji! This will surely make a significant difference in our society."