However, in a serious dichotomy, Ram Podar, Chairman of the Delhi-based Tobacco Institute of India (TII) said that the tobacco industry had merely asked the ASCI to oversee the implementation of the TII's code of ethics mooted in 1991.

``There's been some confusion. We went to the ASCI saying that we have a code and we'd like you to merely oversee its implementation,'' Podar said.

The TII, which is a body of cigarette manufacturers and tobacco farmers had already adopted a more stringent code last month. The code had been adopted by all cigarette companies in India.

Apart from prohibiting personal testimonials by celebrities to endorse tobacco products, the ASCI's code banned these advertisements from publications, TV channels, TV programmes or other media accessible to minors below 18.

But the TII says its updatedcode which came into effect last month, overlaps with the ASCI's code. ``Our primary intention is to prevent smoking amongst minors and not encouraging non-users to smoke,'' Podar said adding that the scope of TII's code was much wider than the ASCI's to include consumer contact and direct marketing.

But the ASCI now feels that their efforts have been in vain. A five-member committee of the ASCI was constituted in December last year after a joint meeting between the advertising professionals, the tobacco industry and social activists.

The committee studied the code followed by the British tobacco industry before formulating its guidelines. Headed by Bharat Patel of Proctor and Gamble, the committee comprising Sam Balsara, Bharat Kapadia, Gautam Rakshit and Arunabha Dasgupta submitted the guidelines in March this year.

In a spate of meetings held between March and until last week, the TII told the ASCI to modify its guidelines. ``But in modifying it beyond a point, we felt it was losing its purpose,''Kapadia said. ``We do not want to enforce a code that the tobacco industry is unwilling to accept, as the ASCI is all about voluntary self-regulation. Nor are we willing to modify our code to make it more acceptable to the tobacco industry.''

The council has regretted that despite efforts being put in the past two years, discussions with the tobacco industry and various consumer organisations, the council had been unable to arrive at a code that was acceptable to the tobacco industry.