By IANS
New Delhi : The government is considering setting up de-addiction centres at the panchayat (village council) levels in the country, Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan told the Lok Sabha Thursday.
“The government is considering to assign a role to the gram panchayats to implement centrally sponsored schemes to run the de-addiction centres,” Jagadeesan informed the house in a written reply to the question of Ajit Jogi, a Congress MP and former chief minister of Chhattisgarh.
The ministry runs and provides financial assistance to the non-government organisations for the de-addiction centres.
As per the official figures, the ministry released over Rs.200 million in 2006-07 as grant-in-aid to the agencies involved in running de-addiction centres while the amount was Rs.220 million 2005-06.
At present, the ministry is assisting around 400 de-addiction centres across the country. The highest number of centres is run in Maharashtra (52), followed by Uttar Pradesh (49), Orissa (28), Karnataka (27) and Tamil Nadu 26.
In the northeastern region, the centre is assisting several de-addiction centres. The break-up includes Arunachal Pradesh (1), Assam (8), Manipur (21), Meghalaya (2), Nagaland (5), Tripura (2), and Sikkim (1).