MLAs fear ‘chitta’ turning Haryana into Punjab

CHANDIGARH: Haryana MLAs, cutting across party lines, on Wednesday raised the issue of alarming increase in cases of drug abuse, especially ‘chitta’ (synthetic drugs), and demanded a strict mechanism be set up “to save the state from becoming another Punjab.”
Last year, Haryana’s law enforcing agencies seized huge quantities of banned drugs, including heroin, charas and cannabis, and illicit liquor.
As many as 2,247 criminal cases were registered for seizure of narcotic drugs in 2017, according to the state government data. The seizures included a total of around 86kg opium, 124kg charas, 9,549kg poppy husk, 9kg smack, 4,367kg ganja and 3.9kg heroin.
In 2017, almost 14,700 criminal cases related to illegal liquor trade were registered in Haryana. In that period, the state seized 17.57 lakh bottles of different varieties of liquor and 22 illegal makeshift distilleries.
A calling attention motion on the issue was tabled by a few MLAs and that led to a free-wheeling discussion on rampant drug and alcohol abuse in Haryana.
Raising the issue, Palwal MLA, Karan Singh Dalal said abuse of intoxicating substances, including opium, heroin, charas, smack, ganja and liquor had drastically increased in Haryana and the situation could worsen like Punjab if these illegal activities are allowed to continue.
Joining him, leader of opposition Abhay Singh Chautala of the INLD said Haryana has earned bad name like Punjab because of increase in cases of drug abuse. He referred to Darba village in his Ellenabad constituency where several youths are in the grip of ‘chitta.’ Chautala also claimed that incidents of thefts in temples have shot up because of increasing number of addicts in the state.
INLD’s Pehowa MLA Jaswinder Singh Sandhu said sale of intoxicants is not possible without connivance of local officials, especially cops. He also raised the issue of illicit liquor in the state and specifically referred to some instances in his constituency when local drug dealers were immediately released by cops.
Rania (Sirsa) MLA Ram Chander Kamboj claimed boys between 14 and 16 years are becoming addicted to ‘chitta’, which is easily available in districts adjoining Punjab and Rajasthan.
State parliamentary affairs minister Ram Bilas Sharma also linked several recent incidents of violence in Haryana's educational institutes with rampant drug abuse. He, however, assured the House that government is extremely serious on ending the use of intoxicating substances and a multipronged approach has been adopted to deal with the problem.
Health minister Anil Vij assured the legislators that the BJP government is focusing on the functioning of drug-de-addiction centres in the state. There are 47 drug de-addiction centres in Haryana, which include 12 government and 35 private-run centres.
As per the data received by TOI from state drug-dependence treatment centre (SDDTC), Rohtak, Haryana has witnessed alarming increase in number of drug addicts in the past few years. The SDDTC is the apex centre in the state, which has also been notified drug treatment centre by the Union government.
Most addicts visiting the centre are alcoholics, but the number of persons addicted to narcotics and synthetic drugs is also increasing considerably.
Most alarming is the steep increase in addicts of opioids and synthetic drugs, including heroin, smack, opium, tramadol and spasmo proxyvon. The number of such addicts has increased seven times from 144 in 2010 to 921 in 2016.
According to experts, main reason for increase in supply of synthetic drugs is effective supply chain of these substances in Haryana.