Drug addiction alarming in State

By Our Staff Correspondent

CHANDIGARH, JULY 10. The Punjab Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Dr. B.R. Chawla, has said 53 per cent of the urban population and 48 per cent rural population in the State are addicted to one intoxicant or another. Tuberculosis, on an average, claimed the lives of 30 persons daily

Talking to presspersons here on Wednesday, he said drug addiction and use of other intoxicants were on the rise with school children increasingly falling victim. ``It is distressing to note that people had begun to give up intoxicants like alcohol and opium, only to start consuming deadlier drugs and medicines like phencydryl, corex, and proxyvon.''

Health authorities had conducted a survey of 5,000 students staying in different hostels. It was found that every second male and every eighth female student had tasted at least one toxicant. Deadly drugs like smack and brown sugar were easily available to college students.

Dr. Chawla said the Civil Surgeon of Gurdaspur district had recently conducted a surprise raid on a college and seized 300 empty bottles of various cough syrups, which had perhaps been consumed in a day. At least 50 full bottles were also recovered.

He said that under the pretext of de-addiction centres, Pakistan was running two camps in Lahore and Karachi, to ensnare more Indian youngters. This strategam formed part of the second phase of the proxy war against India, launched by Pakistan's Inter- Services Intelligence and Federal Intelligence Unit.

Dr. Chawla claimed that Pakistan had allocated $100 crores for promoting anti-India activity through narco-terrorism. Deadly drugs worth $60 crore were pumped into India, through smugglers who earlier supplied arms and ammunition to militants in Punjab. To deal with the situation, the State Government had launched a special de-addiction drive in educational institutions. Voluntary organisations, NGOs, local associations and philanthropic bodies would also involved.

Dr. Chawla said a special action programme was being chalked out. A meeting of the heads of educational institutions, district drug inspectors and the district civil surgeon would be convened to work out the blueprint. This would be followed up with surprise raids on educational institutions. ``While students using any intoxicant would be dealt with strictly, action would also be initiated against the head of the institution.''

The Minister said tuberculosis accounted for at least 30 lives a day in Punjab, which had 3,00,000 full-blown TB cases. Another 75,000 cases had been reported sputum-positive. These patients had the potential to infect 12 more persons. He admitted that the coverage for TB treatment was not more than 65 per cent owing to the increasing numbers of migrant labour.

Under another programme, district-level committees would be formed with the Deputy Commissioner as the chairman and the civil surgeon as vice-chairman. Voluntary organisations and other NGOs would collect funds and account for the distribution of medicines.

The Minister said the Government planned to provide facilities to screen migrant labourers at railway stations and bus termini and owners of industrial units, hotels and other commercial establishments, where migrant labourers are employed, would be directed to get their employees undergo a mandatory medical check-up three months and send the report to the Civil Surgeon.

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