Agartala, March 28, 2023: Claiming Tripura has become the hub of drugs before the arrival of BJP-led government in 2018, Chief Minister Prof Dr Manik Saha on Tuesday said that the state government adopted ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy against narcotic substances.
Tripura is also earmarked the second state in North Eastern Region of India in terms of highest seizures and destructions, he added.
TIPRA Motha MLA Brishaketu Debbarma on the third day of the state assembly on Tuesday brought a calling attention notice over “Present Situation of Drug Addiction in our state (Tripura)”.
In a four pages reply, CM Dr Saha said that the state government has initiated multiple measures to combat the menace of drugs consumption prevailing in this state.
Citing some of the measures, he said “A 10-bedded Drug De-Addiction Centre started at Modern Psychiatric Hospital, Narsingarh and Addiction Clinic OPD also started in this hospital where medicines were given free of cost. The government is considering to open such convenience in other districts. Awareness camps and Workshops for school and college students, and doctors, nurses and healthcare staff, respectively are being organized. State government has drawn the attention of the central government to set up a branch of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in Agartala. Recently some NDPS (Narcotics Drugs & Psychotropic Substances) cases have been handed over to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Tripura Police Crime Branch to trace the communication links between drug trafficking networks, financiers, major drug dealers, drug users and inter-state drug dealers through proper investigation. Proposal to purchase a Full Body Scanner is under consideration to scan vehicles carrying and identifying narcotic substances. 7 training courses have been conducted at the Police Training Academy (PTA) in collaboration with the National Institute of Social Defense (NISD) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in the last two years for the purpose of increasing the investigation skills of NDPS cases.”
Dr Saha also said that a total of 3,65,00,381 cannabis plants have been destroyed in the last three years as a result of regular operations for the destruction of cannabis plants.
Raising point of clarification with several queries, MLA Brishaketu Debbarma said that he cannot find any strong decision initiated by the state government. He alleged “At present, Tripura has become the hub of narcotics and drugs. Parents are frightened to send their ward and daughters to schools and colleges. Did the government take any steps to find whereabouts of the origin of narcotic substances in Tripura or who are importing these items? There illicit business of narcotic substances in different parts of the state. How many drug dealers were arrested and ensured exemplary punishments?”
Citing a few instances of seizures, he said “In Dhalai district, Ganganagar police station staff during routine check 3.52 kilograms of heroin and 10,000 ‘Yaba’ tablets were seized on February 09 last. Similarly, Kamalpur police station staff on March 18 last seized 2.977 kilograms of heroin.”
“Under such circumstances, what would be the future of the upcoming generations? In view of these, there is an urgent need to form a strong committee to combat drug menace in Tripura”, he added.
In reply to this, CM Dr Saha said “Tripura was a hub of drugs before 2018. After we formed government, a war of destruction of cannabis plants have been declared. Cannabis were transported to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal while bulk quantity of narcotic substances were imported from Myanmar and one-third of the those are coming from neighbouring Assam and Mizoram. Tripura is being utilized as a corridor for exporting to neighbouring country Bangladesh. In the meetings of North Eastern Council and All Chief Ministers’ meet in Haryana, discussion took place on combatting drugs menace. Our government is focusing on zero tolerance against drugs. Tripura bags the second highest position in seizures and destruction of narcotic substances.”
