State plans to privatise centres for de-addiction

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 25

Failing to get patients at government-run de-addiction and rehabilitation centres, the state is planning to hand over the centres to private players.

The government had spent around Rs100 crore on constructing 33 de-addiction and around 20 rehabilitation centres a couple of years ago.

Sources said the government was concerned about the lesser number of patients coming to the centres in spite of widespread problem of drug addiction.

A report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India had pointed out several problems plaguing the centres. Subsequently, Health Minister Brahm Mohindra had pulled up his department. Now, the department is planning to run the centres on the public-private partnership (PPP) mode.

Several possibilities are under discussion to bring in private players — one option is to rope in NGOs such as Red Cross and another is to hand over the centres to private hospitals, the sources said.

Dr HS Bali, Director, Health Services, confirmed that discussion on the fate de-addiction centres was in progress. “The final decision is yet to be taken,” he said.

He further said the government was planning to rename drug de-addiction centres as Navjeevan Centres and rehabilitation centres as Navnirman Centres. “We got feedback that some patients don’t want to come for treatment because they don’t want to get associated with word ‘de-addiction’. So, the government is going to rename the centres,” he said.

After coming under fire for widespread drug problem, the then SAD-BJP government had spent Rs 27 crore on 33 de-addiction centres and Rs62 crore on rehabilitation centres a couple of years ago.

In 2016, 8,533 patients were treated at the 33 centres across the state. This number has came down this year. Besides Rs61.89 crore that went into constructing the centres, Rs2 crore was spent on infrastructure, Rs44 lakh on medicine supply and Rs3.2 crore on salaries of employees.