Mumbai: Electronic-cigarettes have found their way into the Indian market after the Union Minister's move to ban public smoking of cigarettes. These e-cigarettes are posed as cigarette-alternatives or smoking-alternatives.

Priced at Rs 1,000, the e-cigarette is a look alike of a standard cigarette and is also held the same way but has no tobacco or smoke. Instead, it contains a high-tech silicon chip, an atomizing chamber and lithium batteries, and other micro-electronic components.According to Business Line, the diluted nicotine gets vaporized to give the smoker his smoke and satisfaction.

The product falls in the regulatory gap between a tobacco product and a tobacco-cessation product, say health-workers from India, the UK and the US, where similar products are being sold over the last several months.

However, anti-tobacco advocacy workers are not quite impressed by the product as it has come when the center is to ban public smoking from October 2. Chennai-based SPK Consumer Solutions, in collaboration with an undisclosed overseas company, is selling the product in Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

The e-cigarette is being sold as an alternative to smoking and a quit-smoking device. The quitters'pack is Rs 3,600, where the smoker can gradually decrease the quantity of nicotine he inhales, till he quits.
On the other hand, the World Health Organisation, warns electronic cigarettes are not safe and effective anti-smoking therapies, as there is inadequate scientific evidence.

Among the e-cigarettes sold overseas is Ruyan E-cigarette from Ruyan America Inc, a US-based joint venture partner of Ruyan Holdings Ltd of Hong Kong. There are 35 manufacturers of e-cigarettes, say health workers, and 60 per cent are from China.