Punjab police has been working on a comprehensive plan to offer assistance in rehabilitation of drug users.
Punjab ADGP (law and Order) Dinkar Gupta on Thursday said that a team headed by Director, Health Services, visited various rehab centres across the country to see the role of police in rehabilitating drug addicts. The team also went to Bangalore where rehabilitation centres are being run under the public-private partnership model. “We have been studying various models of rehab centres and will soon finalise according to practicability and our need,” Gupta said.
Drug addicts or consumers nabbed by police will be sent to rehabilitation centres, he said. “Being a border state with 550-km international border with Pakistan, Punjab has become a transit point in international drug trafficking,” he said. At present, Punjab has three drug de-addiction centres in government medical colleges in Patiala, Amritsar and Faridkot. Seven other de-addiction centres are functional in district hospitals at Tarn Taran, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Bathinda, Faridkot, Muktsar and Hoshiarpur.
There are also 26 voluntary de-addiction or counselling centres in Punjab being run under the control of the Central Government’s health ministry. Besides the Government de-addiction centres, many private de-addiction centres, majority of which are illegal, are being run in smaller towns, villages and cities across Punjab.