Chandigarh, August 7: Paramjit Singh Kainth, Vice President of the Bharatiya Janata Party Scheduled Caste Morcha, Punjab, has described the 129th Report of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha's Committee on Public Undertakings as a document exposing the real picture behind the Bhagwant Mann Government's anti-drug campaign. He said the government's advertisements tell one story, while the Legislative Assembly's own report reveals an entirely different reality.
Kainth said that if the government has had to distribute 5.648 billion (56.48 crore) buprenorphine tablets over the last four-and-a-half years, 3.17 lakh patients, mostly young people, are still dependent on medication, and the supply of buprenorphine tablets to Punjab's jails has increased from 117 million (1.17 crore) tablets to 887 million (8.87 crore) tablets, then the government must explain where exactly drug abuse has been eliminated.
He said the Aam Aadmi Party government continues to claim victory in its war against drugs, but the Legislative Assembly Committee's report clearly establishes that the drug crisis remains deep-rooted. The government has failed to disclose how many young people have become completely drug-free, how many have successfully returned to normal life, and how many continue to survive on medication-assisted treatment.
Kainth further said that the most alarming revelation is that Health Department officials were unable to explain before the Legislative Assembly Committee how buprenorphine tablets were reaching illegal de-addiction centres. According to him, this demonstrates that the government has failed to control both the pharmaceutical supply chain and the illegal network operating around de-addiction medicines.
He said that the 'Yudh Nashian Virudh' campaign has been reduced to nothing more than a publicity exercise. Had the government genuinely succeeded in its fight against drugs, Punjab would not have required billions of buprenorphine tablets, nor would the demand for these medicines inside prisons have increased several-fold.