The rising cases of drug abuse among the youth, spurred by the easy availability of narcotic substances, is a big challenge before the central and state governments. Acknowledging the gravity of the situation, Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin rolled out an initiative to make the state free from ganja or cannabis.
As part of the CM’s initiative, Coimbatore Police has been quite proactive in taking various steps to curb the drug menace in the district and to make their measures even more tight and foolproof, they are now focusing on the rural level.
TAKING A MULTI-PRONGED APPROACH
While speaking with Indian Masterminds, Tamil Nadu South Zone Inspector General of Police, R. Sudhakar, said, “Although drug consumption is not at a very big scale in the district, we are still taking several measures to stop its spread, especially among the school-going children or the youth who are at the building stage right now. Therefore, we decided to take an awareness cum enforcement initiative in the district while involving the local bodies.”
The rural police of Coimbatore have been approaching these initiatives in two ways. Firstly, as a routine thing, they catch the drug peddlers in the district and take strict action against them, like freezing their accounts, and properties, and conducting high seizures. “Secondly,” Mr. Sudhakar said, “we also want to reach the community level and spread awareness. For this, we have launched two initiatives, including the ‘Ganja Free Villages.”
GANJA FREE VILLAGES
Under this initiative, all panchayat residents are called upon to join the fight against drugs. A local monitoring committee is formed for this purpose with police, the local body elected representatives or the panchayat president, school headmasters, and ward members. Meeting are conducted by the panchayat members and the nodal officers regularly, where information about the people who are involved in peddling drugs and the people who are consuming these illegal substances are given to the police. Plans are then rolled out to stop it and take the required actions against them.
Secondly, the police is also planning to set up rehabilitation programmes for the ganja peddlers and the victims who are consuming it on a regular basis. While discussing with them, more information about new peddlers is also obtained by the police and efforts are being made to stop them as well.
Mr. Sudhakar said, “The response has been amazing till now, as across parties, almost every panchayat has promised to show support, and they are more enthusiastic than us about initiating this. Some of the panchayats have already started working with full force and soon they can be declared as Ganja Free Villages.”
If this momentum of police-public camaraderie continues, very soon Coimbatore might become a Ganja Free District.
