The government, which raised the tobacco tax this year with an aim of improving the public health, spent only 8 percent of the budget initially set for non-smoking projects.
The government raised tax by 2,000 won per pack of cigarettes in the first half of this year, taking in around 1.2 trillion won in tax revenues.
According to the National Health Insurance Service, the government spent only 7.5 billion won on supporting health insurance as part of its non-smoking projects from February to June.
The total budget set aside for the project was 100 billion won but only 8 percent was implemented out of 93.4 billion won excluding an operating cost.
When smokers willing to quit visit designated medical centers, they are provided with six consulting services for 12 weeks and medicine for non-smoking as part of the projects. For lower-income groups, all the treatment cost is supported by the government.
The number of smokers willing to quit surged to 39,000 in March from 9,000 in February when the project started. However, the figure started to drop to 26,000 in April and continued to fall to 21,500 in May and 18,000 in June.
