NWFP starts rehabilitation campaign for addicts today

By Ghafar Ali

PESHAWAR: The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) government is going to launch a three-month-long campaign for the rehabilitation of drug addicts and street beggars, which will be formally opened by Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani today (Tuesday).

Briefing journalists here on Monday the NWFP Minister for Social Welfare and Women’s Development, Hafiz Hashmat, said a 30-bed rehabilitation centre would be established at the Blind Institute which would be jointly run by the Social Welfare Department, Health Department, police, the Dost Foundation and other non-government organisations (NGOs).

Besides this centre 60 beds have been reserved in the city hospitals for the purpose of addicts’ rehabilitation. He said the Social Welfare Department and the Dost Foundation had started a campaign to motivate street heroin addicts. “During the campaign 487 addicts have been registered from various places out of which 39 will be treated at the Dost Foundation, whereas the rest will be sent to the other centres,” he said.

He said each addict would be treated for a period of 15 days but would be kept at the rehabilitation centre for 60 more days, so that he did not revert to addiction. “Each patient will cost around Rs 6,000 and the government has allocated Rs 1.7 million for the campaign,” he said.

“It is very difficult for the government to eradicate the menace but a number of NGOs will be engaged in the process,” he said, adding: “The government funding ranged between Rs 10,000 and Rs 50,000 out of the Zakat fund for deserving people’s self-employment.

He dispelled the impression that the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) was against the NGO and said the MMA government was going to organise a conference of all the NGOs in the first week of June to encourage them.

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