Governor urges civil society to aggressively combat drug addiction

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, Feb 18: In a meeting held at Civil Secretariat Srinagar, Governor N N Vohra urged members of civil society to come forward and make rigorous efforts to curb the growing menace of drug addiction across the State.
While holding an extensive interaction with the members of various civil society organisations, Governor said that the problem of drug abuse could be dealt with only through the strong collective will of the society. “Government can take initiatives in this regard but the civil society has to strongly come forward to make the State free from the menace of drug abuse,” he said.
Among others the meeting was attended by Khurshid Ahmed Ganai, Parvez Dewan, Advisors to Governor; B.R Sharma, Chief Secretary; B.B. Vyas, Financial Commissioner Planning and Development; P.K Tripathi, Principal Secretary to the Governor; R.K Goyal, Principal Secretary Home; K. Rajendra, DGP; Bipul Pathak, Commissioner Housing; Rohit Kansal, Commissioner PWD (R&B), PHE and I&FC; Asgar Hassan Samoon, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir.
The Governor directed his Advisors to review this issue in greater detail for concrete measures being urgently enforced to free the State from the drug menace. He urged members of the civil society and business community to proactively support the initiatives to eradicate this societal evil.
The civil society members apprised the Governor about various measures initiated by them to deal with this problem.  He directed officials to work in close coordination with the civil society in this regard. The civil society, represented by Nighat Shafi, Help Foundation-NGO; Dr. Amit Wanchoo; G.H. Hassan Kaloo and Umer Tramboo also appealed to the Governor to create ‘Special Anti-Narcotics Cells’ across the State.