For all his anti-tobacco campaigns, Health Minister A Ramadoss must be getting quite a high every morning when he enters Nirman Bhawan, his office, seeing an “entering a no tobacco area” billboard before the gate.

The irony of the situation is that the champion of anti-tobacco campaigns in India has a small problem. Shops behind the very billboard near the gate sell tobacco products.

“If you smoke inside (the gate), you will get challaned (fined) but here its okay. It’s the gate that is the boundary,” says one of the shopkeepers selling the tobacco products.

As per the latest direction by the Health Ministry due to come into effect from October 2, the only two places where one can smoke will be either at home, with the permission of one’s family members, and on roads. Everything else has been included in the domain of ‘public place’.

This notification has come up for a lot of flak from various sections of the society, the latest being ITC Ltd which approached the Delhi High Court against the Centre's notification banning smoking in private offices, contending the Government’s authority to take such a decision.

So, with the Health Minister trying to rid the citizens of the country of all their unhealthy habits, he might have reached a roadblock or just maybe forgotten to look into his own backyard.