• To determine the number of violations and the correlation between the schools with COTPA violations and characteristics such as gender, size, category, and location of schools, a study surveyed four Indian states.

• These included:

1. Andhra Pradesh (AP)

2. Karnataka (KA)

3. Meghalaya (ML)

4. Uttar Pradesh (UP)

• 289,392 schools were asked to record the number of tobacco-selling establishments within a hundred yards of them, on an app distributed to all schools in these states.

• Out of the 61,748 (21.3%) schools that responded, 16,193 (26.2%) reported the presence of such establishments within a hundred-yard area of them.

• State-by-state, the percentage of non-compliance with the COTPA rules reported was 22.2%, 17.5%, 42.9%, and 31.4% for AP, KA, ML, and UP, respectively.

• There was a strong correlation between the states of KA and ML using chi-square tests (p-value <0.001) regarding characteristics such as school location, size, and category.

• This study indicates that the higher the prevalence of tobacco users in the state, the higher the percentage of schools with tobacco shops (Section 6b violations).

• As per the findings, all these schools violating the rules should be tracked down, and necessary actions should be taken.

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