Packets of chewing tobacco sold across India after December 1, 2011 will have to show images portraying the disfiguring effects of oral cancer, also cigarette and bidi packets will have to show newly selected pictures, the Union health ministry said.

The health ministry has notified two new sets of pictorial warnings — harsher images for packets of chewing tobacco — that will replace the existing pictures, scorpion on chewed tobacco products, and diseased lungs on cigarette and bidi packets.

Cancer and public health specialists have welcomed the new images, but pointed out that the choice of images given to manufacturers of smoking tobacco will allow them to use a milder warning of a man with diseased lungs rather than of mouth cancer.

The new health warnings, due since June 2010, are expected to be implemented by all manufacturers from December 1, 2011. Anti-tobacco activists believe that lobbying by sections of the tobacco industry has contributed to the delay in the new warnings.

The new pictures will be used for two years after which the health ministry is expected to issue a fresh set of pictures.

Health ministry sources said harsher pictures have been selected for chewed tobacco because surveys have shown that more men and women in India use smokeless tobacco, mainly chewing tobacco, than smoking tobacco.