Cash & Manpower Crunch Hit State Anti-Drug And Prohibition Council (SADPC)

GUWAHATI: At a time when Dispur is talking a lot to create awareness about the ill-effects of liquor consumption, the State Anti-Drug and Prohibition Council (SADPC) is literally struggling for its survival due to lack of funds, infrastructure and manpower.

The SADPC, a statutory body formed by the State Government in 1974 to spread awareness against drugs and alcohol, is yet to have a permanent office building because of lack of funds and non-allotment of land by the government. The Council is currently functioning from a rented house at Silpukhuri area of the city.

Even though the SADPC has a mobile cinema unit for screening educative films and shows in rural and tea garden areas, the Council is lying idle for the want of repairs for the past several months. The Council has not been able to involve the panchayats in its activities because of financial constraints.

The SADPC has now one honourary zonal prohibition organiser for the entire Golaghat district (where the recent hooch tragedy took place). Ideally there should have been one assistant prohibition organiser for each of the three sub-divisions of the district. Golaghat honourary zonal prohibition organiser Beni Gowala has not received his monthly honourarium of Rs 3,000 for the past 14 months.

The SADPC had become defunct after the BJP-led government came to power in 2016 as the members of the Council were appointed during the tenure of the previous Congress government.

The development is an irony when more than 150 persons lost their lives and several others became physically disabled after consuming spurious country liquor in tea garden areas in Golaghat and Jorhat districts recently.

“The need of the hour is to create massive awareness against consumption of illegal and spurious liquor. Towards this end the organization like SADPC has to be strengthened and pro-active,” a retired Excise department official said.

The SADPC was formed under three different Acts — The Assam Liquor Prohibition Act, 1952, The Opium Prohibition Act, 1947, and The Assam Ganja and Bhang Prohibition Act, 1958.

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