Maintaining that social maladies like drug addiction had crippled our society, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Saturday said that a joint operation must be launched by the Centre and States to redress this issue completely.
Badal, talking to the mediapersons on the sidelines of an inaugural function of 39th All India National Group Song Competition-2013 organised by Bharat Vikas Parishad (BVP), added that keeping in view the growing tendency of drug addiction especially amongst the youth, the state government had already launched a crusade to stamp out this menace.
“Time and again, we kept on urging the Central Government to take effective measures to check the smuggling of drugs from across the Pakistan border as it is Centre’s sole responsibility to safeguard international borders through Border Security Force (BSF) and other central paramilitary forces, which are directly under its control,” said Badal.
Expressing concern over ever increasing cross-border smuggling of drugs and narcotics, Badal said that SAD-BJP government had already taken strict action to control drug menace within the state and seized huge consignments of drugs and caught the drug peddlers. Blaming the Centre for not taking issue seriously, Badal said that the real problem was still persisting across the border.
He added even the open sale of poppy husk like any other commodity in the neighbouring State of Rajasthan was posing a major threat to Punjab but agony was despite his repeated requests, the Centre had not even asked Rajasthan Government on this count.