CHANDIGARH: In a first-of-itskind initiative, the CMs and top officials of five north Indian states, Chandigarh and Delhi on Monday announced to wage a joint battle against drugs in the region.During the first ‘Regional Conference on Drugs – Challenges & Strategies’, organized in Panchkula, the chief ministers of Haryana , Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand agreed to set up a common secretariat in Panchkula for fighting the menace. The states also decided to formulate a joint strategy.Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar, and his counterparts from Punjab, Amarinder Singh, and Uttarakhand, Trivendra Singh Rawat, attended the meeting. Himachal Pradesh chief minister Jai Ram Thakur took part through video conferencing. Top police and administration officials represented Rajasthan, Delhi and Chandigarh.Khattar said the secretariat would help states share drug-related data. The states also resolved to appoint nodal officers to coordinate with each other about the flow of drugs and other relevant information. Amarinder suggested regular meetings at all levels to tackle the problem and monitoring the fight’s progress. Based on his proposal, the CMs decided to meet every six months to monitor the progress of the joint strategy against drugs.The states also agreed to invite Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir for formulating strategies and implementing them in future. “Drugs have no boundaries, hence the need for a joint strategy to tackle them,” said Amarinder, in a joint press conference after the meeting.The states and the UT decided to hold a meeting once every quarter at the highest level, rotationally chaired by the chief secretary/DGP of each state. Police chiefs of districts on state borders would coordinate with each other on a day-to-day level, it was decided.It was decided that states would launch awareness campaigns in schools, and engage youth in sports and other activities at the village level. Skill development of youth would also be undertaken on a major scale to prevent the spread of drugs, it was decided. All states were of the view that information and data sharing was critical to making the fight against drugs a success. Chandigarh DGP sought harsher charges for those selling drugs to children and suggested that such peddlers be booked under the Juvenile Act along with the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. Additional commissioner of Delhi Police’s crime branch stressed on the need for information sharing among all states on priority.

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