Background and challenges to implementation:
Legislative route is one of the important method to change the behavior. To decrease the consumption of tobacco India has enacted various laws at different times. Latest addition to this is Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), 2003. This study was conducted in 2013 to find compliance of the establishments selling tobacco COTPA and the knowledge of the people about to this law.

Intervention or response:
Community audit was conducted in selected communities of district Faridabad Haryana to map establishments selling tobacco and look for tobacco related advertisements. All establishments selling tobacco were assessed for compliance to provisions of COTPA using a checklist. Thirty participants aged 18-65 years were selected from each cluster by modified EPI cluster sampling method and interviewed to assess their knowledge about COTPA.

Results and lessons learnt:
Around 78% of the establishments were selling tobacco products. In these establishments smoked tobacco products were the predominant type sold (52%). Around 41% were selling tobacco products to minors and 10% were located with in 100 yards of educational institutes. No establishment was fully compliant to COTPA act. Only 5% of the people (n=552) were fully aware of COTPA provisions. Although banned by COTPA participants admitted that they were exposed to tobacco advertisements.

Conclusions and key recommendations:
Although tobacco control laws were enacted long ago the process of implementation was found to be poor.