Putting forth the government's stand over pictorial warnings on cigarette packets, Health Minister JP Nadda on Friday said that they will go ahead with prominent pictorial warnings.

Maintaining the government's view, Nadda said that smoking causes cancer and the size of pictorial warnings should be increased.

"Health Ministry's stand is that we want to reduce use of tobacco as its use is related to cancer. Cigarette material coming into India will have pictorial warnings," he said.

Maintaining the government's view, Nadda said that smoking causes cancer and the size of pictorial warnings should be increased.

The clarification from the Health Minister comes after several leaders of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) on the parliamentary panel on tobacco warnings had made contradictory comments. Nadda said that the Health Ministry's stand is consistent and crystal clear.

Many BJP MPs including Dilip Gandhi and Shyam Charan Gupta and Ram Prasad Sarmah waded into a row claiming there is no clear proof yet linking cigarette puffing and cancer.

Both Gandhi and Gupta are members of Parliamentary Committee of Subordinate Legislation looking into the rules regarding tobacco sale in the country. Gupta is also a beedi baron.

"All agree on the harmful effects of tobacco. But there is no Indian survey report to prove that tobacco consumption leads to cancer. All the studies are done abroad. Cancer does not happen only because of tobacco. We have to study the Indian context, as four crore people in states like Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh are dependent on bidi-making through Tendupatta," Gandhi had said.

Allahabad MP Shyama Charan Gupta had said the pictorial warnings should remain at 40 per cent and the demand to make it 80 per cent was not genuine. Gupta also said that sugar causes diabetes and should be banned by the same logic. He added that beedis are less harmful.

"Pictorial warnings should remain at 40 per cent. Demand to make warnings 80 per cent is not genuine. Sugar causes diabetes and it should be banned by same logic. Beedis are less harmful than sugar," Gupta sad said.

Another BJP MP from Sonitpur Ram Prasad Sharma backed Gandhi and had said, "A person from my constituency used to smoke 60 cigarettes a day and died a natural death at the age of 86. Another person who smokes 40 cigarettes a day is still alive. They don't have cancer. "

The comments came even as the government has been mulling over a proposal to increase the size of pictorial warnings on cigarette packs to convince the buyers to limit smoking.