Parliament on Monday passed a bill which seeks to prohibit the production, trade, transport, storage and advertisement of electronic cigarettes in the country. "We have done it with very pious intention. There is no vested interest," Health Minister Harsh Vardhan told the House in his reply on the bill.

During the debate on the bill, some members expressed apprehensions that the government had brought this bill under pressure from tobacco lobby and demanded the ban be extended to raw tobacco and conventional cigarettes.