PM’S RADIO TALK ON DRUGS SOUNDED LIKE WISH LIST: CAPT
Monday, 15/12/2014
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CHANDIGARH: Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha Captain Amarinder Singh has said the Prime Minister’s views on drug menace in his “Mann Ki Baat” monthly radio address to the nation were less action oriented and sounded more like a “wish list”.
“A PM must set the agenda, tell the nation what he plans to do, not what should be done,” Amarinder remarked here after the third broadcast on Sunday. Welcoming that the PM was concerned about the scourge of drugs, he said: “Who can feel the pain more than us in Punjab, where an entire generation is threatened.”
“I hope that ‘Mann Ki Baat’ does not remain in the PM’s heart but is taken to its logical conclusion,” the former Punjab chief minister remarked, adding that he had been seeking a national drug policy for long, as different states had different drug laws, which the smugglers and peddlers took advantage of.
He said Madhya Pradesh allowed opium to be grown, while Rajasthan allowed it to be traded; and neighbouring Punjab became a fertile market.
“In Amritsar, the constituency I represent in Parliament, there is a village of widows, where 90% of the women have lost their husbands to drugs,” said Amarinder, adding that there were multiple aspects to the supply and availability of drugs.
Narco-terrorism, he said, was only one aspects of the problem that the PM had touched upon. “While terrorists hit and run,” he said, “drugs ruin the entire generation.”
