First Narcotics Coordination meet in Noida: Colleges, foreigners in focus for anti-drugs campaign

Colleges and universities as well as foreign nationals will be on the focus of anti-drugs campaign in Gautam Buddh Nagar, adjoining Delhi, officials said, after the district held its first-ever narcotics coordination meeting.

The meeting of the district-level committee constituted under Narcotics Coordination (NCORD) Management, an initiative of the Centre, was chaired by Gautam Buddh Nagar District Magistrate Manish Kumar Verma, according to an official statement.

''The meeting was attended by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central Noida) Ram Badan Singh, District Excise Officer Rakesh Bahadur Singh, Chief Medical Officer Sunil Sharma, Drugs officer Vaibhav Babbar, and representatives of departments like education, social welfare, forest, GST, tobacco control, Narcotics Control Bureau, Department of Revenue Intelligence, etc,'' the statement read.

''According to the intention of the NCORD management, instructions were given to various departments to take quick action on the basis of mutual coordination and exchange of information among all the departments,'' it added.

The district magistrate also instructed the departments to run awareness campaigns and ensure wide publicity to inform the general public, especially students and youth, about the ill-effects of drugs, according to the statement.

''During the meeting, all departments shared their inputs regarding the menace of drugs in Gautam Buddh Nagar during which some educational institutes, colleges and universities emerged as hotspots for the drug menace. Some incidents of involvement of foreign nationals in drug trade also cropped up during the meeting after which it was decided that educational institutes and foreign nationals will be among focus areas for our anti-drugs campaign,'' an officer who attended the meeting told PTI.

Instructions were also issued to make efforts for swift inter-departmental coordination in order to check the drug menace, the officer added.