High prevalence of drugs: Meghalaya Govt facing lack of trained professionals to rehabilitate addicted youths

Meghalaya Social Welfare Minister Paul Lyngdoh has informed that the government is in touch with certain stakeholders to resolve the issue and wipe out drugs menace from the society in

The prevalence of drugs among the youths in Meghalaya particularly in the Shillong city has reportedly reached alarming proportions.

To wipe out the menace, the Meghalaya Government had come up with the Drug Reduction Elimination and Action Mission (DREAM). But the government still continues to be grappling with a few more challenges.

Meghalaya Social Welfare Minister Paul Lyngdoh today infact admitted that the government is facing dearth of experienced well trained officials to help drug addicts lead a healthy social life once again. However, there is no let up in government efforts to resolve the issue.

Lyngdoh said, “The roblem here is not about the availability of halls or spaces, but the lack of trained manpower which can handle these cases. It is not a facility where you keep a person in your custody and feed him. More than anything they require professional help, professional counselling.

In fact we are in conversation with a group of trained counsellors and psychiatrists and in a couple of months or so something definitely would shape up.”

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, Social Welfare Minister Paul Lyngdoh on Monday released Rs 15.65 lakh as second installment as funding to the Mawlai Town Dorbar for supporting its anti-drug campaign.

“Today we had a very meaningful interaction with the leaders of the Mawlai Town Dorbar. More importantly on behalf of the Government of Meghalaya and the Department of Social Welfare, released the second instalment of funding from the Government of Meghalaya amounting to Rs 15 lakh 65 thousand 280, which is more than the first instalment 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 accomodate around 30 number of drug addicts, offered them counselling as well as livelihood programs. Over and above that the residents who were offered shelter by the Town Dorbar with the financial support from the Government of Meghalaya have received counselling on how to deal with various objections post their addiction phase. So with today’s release of funds the Town Dorbar will be in a better position to further amplify its activities and also involve more of these drug users who have in their first instance, a good number of them have also returned to normal social life and a few of them have also gone back to their families. So we are extremely delighted with the success of the program,” Paul Lyngdoh stated.

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.

Paul Lyngdoh in this regard said, “In Shillong this is the first dorbar that has come forward to openly offer its support to the government, they have also facilitated us with the space which we could use. But as I had mentioned earlier, we are now appealing to various Dorbars to join hands with the government. One way that we can come for immediate help to the various Dorbars is through this ‘DREAM’ mission to set up homes (rehab) whereby the Dorbars can offer us land and we will set up the required facilities.”

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