In continuation of the drive to make Punjab a drug free State, Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Saturday initiated his two-day whirlwind tour of all the drug de-addiction centres across the State along with experts and key officers of the Health Department.
The Chief Minister who visited the drug de-addiction centres at Batala, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, and Kapurthala, inspected the infrastructure and the medical facilities being offered by these centres to the drug addicts undergoing detoxification. During interaction with the Chief Minister, all the drug addicts and their families expressed satisfaction over the crusade started by the state government against drug menace.
Most of the patients apprised the Chief Minister that they have voluntarily came to these centres after making up their mind to get rid of the curse of drug addiction.
Talking to reporters in Jalandhar, at drug de-addiction centre at the ESI Hospital, Badal said that with the concerted efforts of the state government, Punjab would soon become a “drug free state”. He reiterated that the state government has followed a twin strategy for wiping out this menace from Punjab as on one hand massive drive has been initiated to cut the supply line of the drugs and on the other hand a campaign has been embarked for detoxifying the drug addicts in such drug de-addiction centres.
Badal said the state government was giving free medicines to the drug addicted youth in the centres adding that addicts from BPl/Blue card holder families were also exempted from the other user charges in these centres. To make sure that the de-addicted youth could live a life with dignity; the state government would open 22 Rehabilitation centres across the state
within three months. He said that soon prefabricated buildings for these centres would be constructed by NBCC, an agency of the Government of India (GoI). Asked about allegations of misuse of NDPS Act, the Chief Minister said no such case has came into his knowledge till now. However, he said the framing up of innocent persons in false cases would not be tolerated at any cost.