Calcutta, Nov. 20 :    Calcutta, Nov. 20:  The state government is formulating an Act against smoking and spitting in public places. The Smoking and Spitting Act, which will enable law-enforcers to arrest offenders on the spot, is scheduled to come up in the Assembly this winter session. Health joint secretary (law) Pareshnath Sen said on Tuesday: .It will be a bailable offence, but even some arrests will spark fear among those smoking in public places. Bus conductors will be empowered to evict smokers, while a strict vigil must be imposed at railway stations, courts, educational institutions and, of course, hospitals,. Sen said. Health department officials, however, are not optimistic about the efficacy of such an Act. In a state where ministers . from chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to health minister Surya Kanta Mishra . head the list of high-profile smokers, formulating the Act will be far easier than implementing it, they fear. Same goes for spitting in public. Though .looked down upon, especially in the urban centres., officials say spitting is a .regular habit. for many, which will take a while to curb. Officials say the move to enact such rules follows the recent Supreme Court directive asking governments to ban smoking in public places. But they admit that a lot more needs to be done, besides publicising the court directive on TV and in newspapers, as the government is now set to do. . The government could have easily enforced the apex court directive in places it has a direct control over,. said a health department official. .But when you have a culture that tends to support smoking and absence of willpower at the very top to take tough steps, there's nothing much that rules can do.. The proposed Smoking and Spitting Act will also aim at banishing pan masala from public places. The government here is yet to receive copies of the Supreme Court ban on the sale of pan masala,. Sen said. But he admitted receiving information that the governments of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, New Delhi and Rajasthan had already banned the sale of .tobacco in the chewable form.. The Supreme Court blanket ban covers a period of five years starting Tuesday. The proposed law cracks down on smoking and chewing tobacco in public places by making it a cognisable offence. But it makes no attempt to curb the sale of pan masala and the like. .This is a loophole in the Act, but it will, hopefully, be plugged by the Supreme Court directive once it is received and enforced in the state,. a senior health department official said.