Rehab centre inspection panel accused of flouting norms
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, November 20 2022:
While accusing the Inspection Committee led by the District Social Welfare Officer of disregarding many of the government guidelines during their interview with private rehabilitation centres for registration purposes; Drug Users' Federation for Human Right and Justice advisor RK Nalinikanta has urged for halting the inspection until all the errors are rectified.
Addressing a press meet held at the office of Community Network for Empowerment (CoNE), Keishampat, here on Sunday, RK Nalinikanta appreciated the step taken up by the government for ensuring registration of non-funded private rehabilitation centres.
However, the Inspection Committee, when visiting the centres which have applied for the registration, are asking questions that are devoid of issues related to human rights violation and other key points.
Raising doubt over the transparency and sincerity in the selection procedure of members of the Inspection Committee, RK Nalinikanta said that the Committee, upon whose report and recommendation, the registration certificate is to be issued, comprises three members and a chairperson (District Social Welfare Officer of the district concerned).
The members should be one each finance officer, expert who has experiences of working in drug treatment/rehabil-itation centres and representative from the drug user community.
However, the selection of the community representative seems arbitrary as community members working in the field for many years were never informed officially and kept in the dark.
"There has been unfair selection procedure of the committee members and justice has not done.
All members have been selected on their own discretion," he remarked.
He continued that if a centre is able to answer 70 out of the 100-mark questions, they are directly registered, while above 50 are given temporary registration for a provisional period of 6 months and those obtaining less than 50 are denied registration.
On top of this, if the person opening the centre happens to be a convicted man/woman, the registration is denied.
If the centre violates any human rights law, around 20 marks is deducted.
However, the Inspection Committee seems to have failed to understand all these details, as the questions asked to the centres are unrelated or lacking any reference to human rights violation, such as whether the inmate was admitted to the centre with his/her consent or by force.
As per the information provided in the Gazette, a person has to be brought before a judicial magistrate or a police officer not below the rank of a DSP and the consent of the person to be admitted to the centre.
As such, concerns have been raised on whether the lack of these key questions would allow certain centres with proper documentation and good external image, but holding a record for human rights violation, would be allowed to get registered, he posed.
Stating that the demand for formulating specific guidelines for private rehabilitation centres has been made for a long time; RK Nalinikanta said that the demands were made to save the inmates in abusive centres.
However, the action of the Inspection Committee is completely contradictory.
Furthermore, at the time of forming the Inspection Committee, some people schemed to communalise the Committee.
In addition, the question regarding para 9 of the previous guideline on training, monitoring and evaluation is being asked to the centres without even providing the training.
Thus, he urged the Inspection Committee to halt its operations for sidelining the guidelines published in the state Gazette, while further urging for joint efforts to mend the gaps in the registration process and ensuring its effectiveness.