Events promoting drug de-addiction a new normal at educational institutions

Organising events to spread awareness against drug abuse has become a routine at most educational institutes in the region. Seminars, poster-making, slogan-writing and taking formal pledges to support the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, are some of the activities being undertaken under the aegis of the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

Students and teachers at these schools were already preoccupied in such activities under the state government's ongoing Yudh Nashian Virudh campaign. Authorities at government senior secondary schools said these events had become a part of the academic itinerary during the past few years.

"We have been updating students against the ill-effects of drugs and other social evils during morning assemblies. Even elaborate events are organised from time-to-time according to the instructions received from district education officers," said Amandeep Singh, Principal at the PM Shri Government Senior Secondary School in Bhogiwal.

Sukhwinder Singh Bindra, a member of the National Institute of Social Defence and a special invitee to the National Consultative Committee on De-addiction and Rehabilitation (NCCDR) said the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan had been running successfully at the national level for the past five years. Bindra said an intensified campaign had now been launched in Punjab which would give a significant push to programmes already running in the state for de-addiction and rehabilitation of youths.

"The programme, when taken to various parts of Punjab, including hotspots of drug abuse and peddling, is expected to make a push to disassociate young people these activities and offer them avenues for recovery and rehabilitation in collaboration with the NCCDR," said Bindra, maintaining that the intensified campaign seeks to cover educational institutes, youth organisations and sports associations in all districts of the state.

Bindra said a statewide campaign would be launched from Amritsar on September 13 to update the masses about the Union Government's concern towards eradication of drugs from the nation in general and Punjab in particular. Cabinet Minister Dr Virendra Kumar and Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria have consented to inaugurating the campaign, said Bindra.