GUWAHATI: A total of 32 private drug rehabilitation centres in Guwahati have prepared a road map to assist the government in the fight against drugs.
A proposal of eight significant points will be submitted before chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma in next three-four days.
Dr Sondeep Hanse, chief functionary of State Level Coordinating Agency (SLCA) for drug prevention for Assam and Meghalaya, told TOI that the owners of the centres discussed the matter of drug demand reduction and rehabilitation on the day of International Drugs Day and have decided to assist the government in public private partnership (PPP) mode.
He said the first proposal to the government is to open opioid substitution therapy (OST) centres in at least 10 civil hospitals and empanel these private rehab centres in providing immediate outdoor treatment to the drug users by bringing them from the field.
He said the rehab centres will do outdoor monitoring, treatment and rehabilitation of the drug users as it is not possible for the government to handle the entire process to treat a drug user as it takes a period of around 6 months.
Assam has 26 drug rehab centres run by different NGOs under the Social Welfare department.
They get around Rs 24 lakh every year from the Centre.
However, according to an official source, just four out of the 26 are currently fully functional.