Haryana, Punjab, HP, Uttarakhand vow to fight drugs menace together
Updated: Aug 21, 2018
CHANDIGARH, AUG 20
Four northern states have decided to fight drugs together. Chief Ministers of Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand participated in a Regional Conference of Chief Ministers on `Drug menace, challenges and strategies’ in Chandigarh today.
Chief Ministers of Haryana Manohar Lal, Punjab, Capt. Amarinder Singh and Uttarakhand, Trivendra Singh Rawat were present in the meeting, whereas the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Jairam Thakur joined them through video conferencing. The senior officers of Home and Police Departments of Haryana, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Union Territory of Chandigarh participated in the conference.
A joint statement was issued at the end of the conference. Before the start of the conference, a two-minute silence was observed to pay homage to the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The joint statement stated that , “We, the Chief Ministers of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand and the senior officers representing Rajasthan, Delhi and UT of Chandigarh are happy to have had an extremely constructive meeting on effectively addressing and countering the drug menace. We shared our experiences so far in our State specific battles against drugs and recognized our common concern for developing strategies and actions that our Governments can take to protect our youth, children and the next generations from the harm of drugs.
This first meeting of its kind was held in a businesslike and constructive manner. We agreed to meet every six months to review progress on various action points on three dimensions agreed upon in today’s meeting. We also agreed to invite the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and senior officers of Jammu & Kashmir in future.
``We hope to “deliver as one” with the full might of the law in a crusade like manner to break and demolish the supply chains. We agreed on setting up of a Permanent Secretariat for this in Panchkula. We also agreed that there would be monthly meeting of our Special Task Forces and quarterly meetings at the level of Home Secretaries to build interagency trust. We also agreed on regular meetings at the level of DCs and SPs.
On the Preventive side we agreed on the need for a multidisciplinary approach that puts our boys and girls at the centre of our joint response. Those who are the most vulnerable whether in schools, colleges, universities, their residential buildings or outside deserve our special attention.
To ensure that no child ever falls prey to pessimism we shall undertake concerted efforts at engagement and awareness generation by various Departments including those of Education, Health, Skill Development alongwith non-governments and community organizations. It would be very important to harness the powers of social media in enabling our youth to emphatically say NO to drugs.
On the De addiction side we agreed to invest more resources in setting up of more centres and strengthening the existing ones whether in the public or private sector. We agreed to go in for intensive identification of “at high risk” individuals and addicts and their prompt medical treatment. We agreed to strengthen the work at the grass roots through use of all possible technologies to make more and more of our villages, mohallas and cities drugs free.”