New Delhi, Feb. 18 -- Cigarette manufacturers may soon have another mandate to "benefit" smokers. Besides the statutory warning and other relevant details, the packets will have to specify "best before" or "expiry" details, on the lines of other edible and consumable items, including medicines.

Sources in the Bureau of India Standards (BIS) said that research is ongoing on the subject as this is the long pending demand of tobacco and gutkha associations and even by the consumers.

"The best before/expiry dates of cigarette packets may be introduced soon and we believe this will in a way also counter fake manufacturing of the cigarettes. Our research team have also found that certain products had traces of fungus which when inhaled is mor...