The Anti-Tobacco Media Alliance (ATMA) has called on the government to reduce the number of cigarette price tiers from four to three in the forthcoming national budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

The proposal, aimed at discouraging tobacco use among youth and low-income populations while increasing state revenue, was presented during a meeting of ATMA members held at Bishwa Sahitya Kendra in the capital.

Speakers at the event advocated for merging the low and medium price tiers of cigarettes, suggesting a new retail price of BDT 90 for 10 sticks under the merged tier.

They proposed retaining the current retail price of BDT 140 for high-tier cigarettes and increasing the price of premium-tier cigarettes to BDT 190 for 10 sticks.

The suggested tax structure includes maintaining the current rates of 67% supplementary duty (SD), 15% value-added tax (VAT), and 1% health development surcharge (HDS) across all cigarette categories.

For other tobacco products, the proposals recommended setting the retail price for 25 sticks of non-filtered bidi at BDT 25 and 20 sticks of filtered bidi at BDT 20, both subject to 45% SD.

Prices for smokeless tobacco—10 grams of jarda and gul—were proposed at BDT 55 and BDT 30 respectively, with a 60% SD. The current 15% VAT and 1% HDS on all tobacco products were advised to be retained.

Experts at the event emphasized that adopting these measures could yield an additional BDT 20,000 crore in government revenue and significantly improve public health.

They warned, however, that the tobacco industry continues to spread misinformation to derail meaningful reform.

According to the presenters, full implementation of the proposed changes could prevent the premature deaths of 1.7 million people, including nearly 900,000 youths in Bangladesh.

The meeting was attended by 49 ATMA members, including co-conveners Mizan Chowdhury and Nadira Kiron, PROGGA representative Hasan Shahriar, and other notable speakers such as Kawser Rahman, City Editor of The Daily Janakantha, Mortuza Haider Liton, ATMA Convener, and ABM Zubair, ATMA Member-Secretary.

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