Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is working on kick-starting a fresh pilot survey in three States to assess the number of drug abusers in the country. The project which missed its February 2013 deadline should finally see the light of day.
“The pilot survey project will be conducted in high concentration of drug using States — Maharashtra, Punjab and Manipur. It should start by next month. We have drafted the final questionnaire, which is now waiting for a go-ahead,” said an official from MSJE.
“Since we do not have any accurate data to suggest the actual number of drug users in the country it is difficult to plan and implement any policy or scheme. The 2001 data is obsolete and does not mean much as the sample size was barely 40,000, from which estimations were made. The survey was also faulty as it did not include the women drug users,” said the official.
The 2001 survey carried out by MSJE with United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that approximately 7.5 crore Indians were addicts. The National Survey on extent, pattern and trends of drug abuse in India showed that the prevalence rates within the age group of 12-18 years were alcohol (21.4 per cent), cannabis (3 per cent), opiates (0.7 per cent) and any illicit drug (3.6 per cent).
The Ministry is also working on introducing a national policy on drug abuse and has formed an expert committee to suggest guidelines for it. The committee has met once so far. “This policy is essential as it will ensure coordination among agencies and State Governments while providing us a regular feedback on the impact of the schemes,” official said.
“We have time and again formed several schemes to break the demand and supply nexus of drug trading and consumption, which is mostly sighted in the States with porous borders but due to lack of a national policy, these schemes are not being implemented properly,” he said.
The Committee includes experts from medical colleges, centres engaged in task of rehabilitation of drug victims, officials of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and other stakeholders. The Ministry is also in regular consultations with all stakeholders and organisations engaged in rehabilitation of drug victims, they said.