Facing fire from rival and even friendly political parties for its failure to deal with drug menace in the State, Punjab Government has launched a two-pronged strategy to salvage its image.
The ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) is not just organising dharnas at the “porous” Indian borders to underscore the failure of central agencies in preventing the pumping in of narcotics, but is also claiming to have put in place a system to deal with the menace. The latest in the scheme of things is the launching of a survey for pinpointing the extent of problem in the State.
Just a day before SAD’s proposed protest at three of its borders with Pakistan, the Government on Sunday wrapped up the measures it had taken during the past two years. It doled out figures, and more figures, to show that enough was being done by the State agencies to tackle the problem, and the problem lied elsewhere.
Bogged down under attack from all corners for its alleged failure to control rampant drug menace in Punjab, the State Government on Sunday took support of the administrative machinery and the experts from the prestigious medical institute to claim that it has set up adequate infrastructure to tackle the menace.
The State Government, from the past couple of days, is already flashing huge advertisements in the newspapers to send across the message that drug problem in the State is the consequence of smuggling through borders while the State Government is fighting all-out war against the menace for the country by seizing huge amounts.
Seeing the BJP leaders pointing fingers at SAD on drug issue and its decision to launch anti-drug drive in the State, the SAD has intensified its attack on the Border Security Force (BSF), and also the Centre for its failure to check penetration of drugs in the State from Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Akali Dal has also claimed that “not even a single gram of drugs is produced in Punjab”. Many SAD leaders, including Revenue Minister Bikram Majithia, are under Enforcement Directorate scanner for their alleged involvement in multi-crore drug case.
Coming to State Government’s rescue, a senior expert from the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) Dr Ajit Awasthi, along with the State Principal Secretary Health Vini Mahajan and Advisor to Punjab Government for Medical Education and Research Dr KK Talwar, on Sunday informed the media about its efforts to establish drug de-addiction infrastructure along with the rehabilitation facilities.
They maintained that a total of 27 drug de-addiction centres have already been made operational in the State, besides ensuring systematic territory, secondary and primary level treatments to the drug addicts to enable them leading a constructive life. To check cases of relapse, the rehabilitation facilities including physical activities, skill training, will also be ensured through rehab-centres in every district “before March 31”.
“We would have the de-addiction facility of around 1100-bed and approximately 270 beds for rehabilitation,” claimed Dr Awasthi, PGIMER’s psychiatry professor working on the project with the State Government since past two years.
He maintained that considering serious drug problem in State’s jails, de-addiction centres have been set up at eight model jails at Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Kapurthala, ludhiana, Patiala, Bathinda, Faridkot, and Ferozepur where 22,669 have been treated, 461 detoxified, and 718 are in rehabilitation wards.
The Government would follow its initiatives of de-addiction and rehabilitation with the continuing mass education programme especially targeting the youngsters. “MoU has been signed with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to create awareness and our main priority this year would be demand-side deduction and rehabilitation,” said Vini Mahajan. Dr Awasthi shared that in past around six months, from June 19 to December 15, a total of 3,30,533 drug patients had been treated on OPD basis, while 11,656 patients had been treated as indoor patients.
NO RElIABlE DATA; SURVEY TO GET DRUG PREVAlENCE RATE
PGI experts claimed that the State Government has “no estimates” that can give the exact picture of the severity of the drug problem in the State. To get the “reliable” data regarding the drug prevalence figure in the State, the State Government has approached the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to conduct a comprehensive study.
The proposal has already received technical approval, and is now “awaiting funding”. Besides, Union Ministry of Social Justice is also planning conducting a study with the AIIMS. Dr Awasthi said: “All previous studies covered one aspect or particular region of the State, and not the entire State that does not tell us about the prevalence figures.”
“To have prevalence figures, we proposed house-to-house survey of entire rural and urban area, secondly assessing the hidden population via rapid assessment survey, and thirdly covering the population undergoing treatment. With this, I hope that we would get the most reliable data which would be near estimate, and this is the need of the hour,” said Dr Awasthi, saying that study may take “around two years” time.
He said that the survey would be conducted through the State Government medical colleges of Faridkot, Amritsar, and Patiala, along with Amritsar’s Institute of Medical Health. At the same time, he rejected that 70 per cent youth in Punjab were addicted to drugs — a figure given by the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi that led to drug controversy. “That was a wrong interpretation of the study. The study picked up the known subject in dependence,” he added.
MAXIMUM PATIENTS OPIATE USERS
Among over three lakh drug patients in the State’s de-addiction centres, maximum are the opiate users.
“Maximum patients we have are opiate users who take intoxicants afeem (opium), smack, poppy husk (bhukki), heroin, brown sugar…We have multi-drug users and also the alcohol dependent, but there number is not much,” said Dr Awasthi.
MUlTI-PRONGED STRATEGY TO COMBAT DRUGS
KK Talwar, PGIMER former director, claimed that Punjab was the only State to have such a multi-pronged strategy to deal with the drug menace. “We are working on three points — de-addiction, rehabilitation and third mass awareness. We need more concentrated job and PGIMER School of Public Health is assisting us in this,” he said, adding that continuing mass awareness campaign is our next step after providing adequate infrastructure for de-addiction and rehab.