In a first, a meeting was held between the chief ministers of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand in Chandigarh Monday to effectively address and counter the menace of narcotics in north India. The meet, titled the Regional Conference of Chief Ministers on the issue of Drug Menace, Challenges and Strategies, was convened by Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar.
A joint statement released after the meet listed a number of measures that could be taken for enforcement of anti-narcotics laws, prevention and de-addiction.
The meet was attended by Punjab chief minister Capt. Amarinder Singh and Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat. Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jairam Thakur attended through video conferencing. Senior officers of the Home ministry and Police departments of the states participated in the conference.
“We shared our experiences so far in our state-specific battles against drugs and recognized our common concern for developing strategies and actions that our Governments can take to protect our youth, children and the next generations from the harm of drugs,” the ministers said in the statement said.
On the enforcement front, the ministers agreed to be more proactive and facilitate a quick exchange of information on drug trends, cases registered, persons named, wanted or arrested, the statement said. All the measures will be effective from Monday, the statement added.
To prevent young children from falling prey to drug addiction, the meet decided to launch awareness programmes by departments – including the Education, Health, Skill Development – along with non-government and community organisations in schools, colleges, universities and residential areas. The meet also highlighted the importance of using social media to spread awareness about drug abuse.
The meet also agreed upon investing more resources in setting up more de-addiction centres and strengthening the existing ones whether in the public or private sector.
“We agreed to go in for intensive identification of “at high risk” individuals and addicts and their prompt medical treatment. We agreed to strengthen the work at the grassroots through use of all possible technologies to make more and more of our villages, mohallas and cities drugs free,” the ministers said in the joint statement said.
The chief ministers and officials also agreed to meet every six months to review progress on the action points discussed in the meeting. They also agreed to invite Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and senior officers of Jammu & Kashmir in future.
