In an attempt to jointly tackle the drug menace in the country’s northern region, six States -- Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Delhi -- and the Union Territory of Chandigarh on Monday decided to set up a centralised secretariat at Panchkula (Haryana) where nodal officers from each State will be deputed for sharing intelligence and information.
The decision was taken at the regional conference of the Chief Ministers organised here by the Haryana government on the issue of “Drug menace, challenges and strategies”.
A joint statement, released after the conference, said that it was agreed that there was a need for more proactive and quick information exchange on drug trends, cases registered and persons named, wanted or arrested.
Video conferencing
The meeting was attended by Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat, Punjab CM Amarinder Singh while their Himachal Pradesh counterpart Jairam Thakur joined them through videoconferencing. Senior officials representing Rajasthan, Delhi and Chandigarh also participated.
“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. That there would be monthly meeting of our special task forces and quarterly meetings at the level of Home Secretaries to build inter-agency trust,” said the statement.
It was also decided to invite the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and senior officers from Jammu and Kashmir in future and involve them in the anti-drug strategy implementation.
Mr. Thakur said that the Himachal government was contemplating evolving a mechanism for regular medical check-ups in schools to detect early signs of drug abuse. “Long-term strategy should also be chalked out to engage youth in constructive activities. Besides, parents should also keep an eye on abnormal behaviour of their teenage children,” he said.
Mr. Rawat stressed on strengthening the intelligence network, saying that information and data sharing was critical to making this fight a success.
Capt. Amarinder called for effective sealing and surveillance along the international and the State borders.
He suggested strengthening of Border Security Force presence and intensification of its patrolling by making use of technical gadgets to make its surveillance effective, especially during night hours and the foggy season.