SHILLONG, MAY 20: Meghalaya is one of the first States which is using the traditional bodies to fight against Drugs. Social Welfare Minister Paul Lyngdoh on Monday claimed that the success rate of Meghalaya in tackling Drug menace is higher than the National average.
Under the Dream Mission, the state Government released Rs 15.65 lakh as second installment as funding to the Mawlai Town Dorbar for supporting its anti-drug campaign.
Social Welfare Minister Paul Lyngdoh has appealed all the Dorbar Shnongs to join hands in the implementation of the DREAM project
Addressing media persons, Lyngdoh said, “Today we had released the second installment of funding amounting to Rs 15.65 lakh, which is over and above the first installment of Rs 6 lakh that was released in the month of November last year to facilitate the anti-drug campaign of the Mawlai Town Dorbar, which had taken care to accommodate around 30 of drug addicts, offered them counselling as well as livelihood programmes. Over and above that, the residents, who were offered shelter by the town dorbar with the support from the government of Meghalaya have also received counselling how to deal with the various affliction post their drug addiction phase.”
“With today’s release of funds, the town dorbar will be in a better position to further amplify its activities and also involved more of these drug users, who have in the first instance a good number of them have also returned to normal social life and a few of them also have gone back to their families,” he said.
He informed that the Mawlai Town Dorbar is the first traditional institution to come forward and openly offered its support to the government in its fight against drug menace, by providing a space for setting up the rehabilitation centre.
While commenting on the role of traditional institutions and the civic bodies in the fight against the drug menance, Lyngdoh said, “We are now appealing to various dorbars to also join hands with the government. One way that we can come to immediately help to the various dorbars is through this DREAM mission to set up what are called half way homes, whereby the dorbars can offer us land and we will set up the required facilities.”
“In the last general meeting convened in presence of the chief minister invited various dorbars, we have made this open offer to them. A few have responded but then some of these offers still lack the required parameters, which they should meet. For instance, we are looking for lots of lands on which government can set up facilities or if they have community halls, which can be used exclusively for sheltering these inmates during the course of reform programmes,” he said. He said a number of these shnongs have offered their support but for instance they problems with the dorbar shnongs because their halls would only be availabe for only a certain period of time as and when they have their meetings, they require those halls again so that becomes problematic for us.”
Asked, the minister however said that this is something, which goes beyond one single department of the government, which is why we have conceived the DREAM mission which also involved home police and home department. These are line departments, which need to interact and coordinate their activities.