Meghalaya government convenes meet on drug menace in state

A CORRESPONDENT

SHILLONG: The Social Welfare department on Tuesday held a meeting on the menace of drug trafficking and drug use in the state. At the meeting officials of the Home (Police) department, Social Welfare, NGOs involved in the fight against drugs, Meghalaya AIDS Control Society and members of the Drug Reduction Elimination and Action Mission (DREAM) were present.

Social welfare Minister Paul Lyngdoh informed that the discussions were wide ranging and covered a lot of areas.

“We reviewed the progress of the DREAM project, the various interventions that have taken place and also we looked at the way forward and how to address the gaps that we noticed in tackling the menace of drugs,” Lyngdoh told reporters. He said that one major area of concern for the government was the need to make the DREAM a community oriented.

“We would not like to see DREAM as just a government initiative. But it is important in order to eliminate and eradicate the menace of drugs we need to broaden the involvement of civil society,” Lyngdoh said.

The Social Welfare Minister said that one of the areas of discussion was on revamping and reorganizing and also to look at the possibility of organizing the Village Defence Party especially in the identified hotspots, including Shillong.

He said that in the last couple of interactions with Dorbar Shnongs there was general consensus that the Shnongs (villages/localities) would like to be involved in identifying and tackling the menace. Lyngdoh said that one of the gaps in tackling the menace of drugs was the fact that the various Shnongs felt that they are not adequately empowered.

He said that the Shnongs to be involved in the process of fighting the drug menace, like taking an accused and filing a case against them in police stations becomes a cumbersome task.

Also Read: Meghalaya stakeholders urged to fight drug menace together (sentinelassam.com)

Also Watch: