Minister: No rehab centre for addicts

Bhartesh Singh Thakur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 5

There is no rehabilitation centre for addicts in the state, admitted Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Krishan Kumar Bedi in the Assembly on Monday. He was replying to an adjournment motion moved by Abhay Chautala on the drug menace.

“We are planning to have 22 rehabilitation centres, one for each district,” said Bedi. The centres would have provisions for vocational training and yoga, besides counsellors, clinical psychologists and doctors. “There will be monitoring of addicts for three years,” he said.

The government was mulling a provision for legal rehabilitation of addicts. “Sometimes, addicts are caught under the NDPS Act due to high quantity. With the help of police investigation, an addict can be segregated from a peddler and the state can help him get bail so that he can be rehabilitated,” he said.

Abhay questioned the outcome of inter-state meetings of Manohar Lal Khattar with his counterparts in neighbouring states. He cited a story in The Tribune dated February 25 — ‘State high on drugs, third in opioid addiction’.