PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has advocated intervention on educational campuses to create awareness against drugs even as he informed the Goa Legislative Assembly in a written reply that as many as 16 minors were charged under the NDPS Act for possession of drugs in last five years or so.
Sawant's reply revealed that in the little over five years between 2018 and June this year, the minors were charged with drug trafficking and consumption related offences. Six of these minors were bonafide students in some institution or the other, which Sawant declined to identify.
The chief minister admitted that no specific action has been taken in the locales where educational institutions are situated but added that Goa police's anti-narcotics cell, other police stations in tandem with schools, colleges and other educational institutions will be launching programmes to educate students about the ill effects of consumption and trafficking of drugs.
The written response of Sawant came in the context of an unstarred question tabled by Curtorim MLA, Aleixo Reginald Lourenco, who wanted to specifically know if addiction was prevalent among juveniles and student community.
Sawant said, nine minors were booked in 2018 and another four the following year in 2019, In 2020, the year the pandemic hit there was only one case of a minor's involvement in drug related cases.
The figure was nil in 2021, again a year when the pandemic raged. In 2022, there was a single case of a minor caught with drugs and this year until June one minor is in the net.
Sawant also claimed in the written reply that various competitions are being organised for the student community to drive the anti-drug message into the consciousness of the youth and student community in particular.
