GoI Team Assures All Support To The State Govt. In Its Mission To Curb Drug Menace
Three Member Delegation Led By Joint Secretary Calls On CM
5 Dariya News
Chandigarh 07-Jul-2014
A three-member delegation from Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, GoI led by its Joint Secretary Mrs.Ghaza Meenai pledged all support and cooperation to the state government in its mission to make Punjab a drug free state. An assurance to this effect was given by Mrs. Meenai to the Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal during her meeting with the later at Chief Minister's residence this morning. Taking part in deliberation, Mrs. Meenai apprised the Chief Minister that she would thrash out all the issues after detailed deliberations with the Principal Secretary Health and Secretary Social Security to work out modalities for funding the drug de-addiction centers under the guidelines of 'Central Sector Scheme of Assistance for Prevention of Alcoholism and Substance (Drugs) Abuse and for Social Defence Services'. She informed the Chief Minister that the Ministry could easily fund the running cost incurred on the drug de-addiction as per the guidelines of the scheme instead of allocating funds for infrastructure. She however, said that the Ministry would certainly look into the state government's proposal to be submitted after the preliminary discussions from all the angles to bail out the state in its crusade against the drug abuse. She further said that the issue of giving grants to the registered drug de-addiction and rehabilitation societies at the district levels separately or collectively would also be thoroughly examined after threadbare discussions with the state departments of Health and Social Security.
Expressing gratitude to Mrs. Meenai for the positive outcome of the discussions in the meeting, the Chief Minister said that the state had already fighting a war against drug abuse with a missionary zeal and the financial assistance from Centre at this critical juncture would give a big boost to bring our campaign, for elimination of drug menace at its logical end. He also sought Centre's help to dissuade the Rajasthan government for allowing open sale and trafficking of poppy husk and other narcotics freely in our state which ultimately derailed our efforts to curb this menace with heavy hand, adding he said that the GoI should intensify its efforts to effectively check the free flow of poppy husk from across Rajasthan border into Punjab. He hoped that Centre could here play a pro-active role by asking the Rajasthan government to ban the open sale of poppy husk.
The delegation would also visit the Drug De-addiction Centres at Jalandhar and Amritsar to take stock of the situation besides seeking inputs from the Civil Surgeons about their functioning.The Chief Minister was accompanied by his Principal Secretary Mr. SK Sandhu, Special Principal Secretary Mr. KJS Cheema besides Principal Secretary Health Mrs. Vinni Mahajan and Secretary Social Security Mr. Jaspal Singh. The other members of the delegation from Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment who attended the meeting included: Under Secretary Mr. Rajesh Kumar Sinha and Director SPYM Dr. Rajesh Kumar.