Monitor rehab centres: MHRC to DG, SW Dept
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, March 18 2024:
The Manipur Human Rights Commission (MHRC) has issued notices to the Director General of Police and Commissioner, Social Welfare Department to conduct regular checks of private de-addiction centres and submit status reports to the appropriate authority.
According to MHRC Chairperson Justice UB Saha's order, the notices were issued in connection with an instant complaint case filed through net portal by one Berlin Salam appealing the Commission to instruct the Director, Social Welfare Department to formulate specific guidelines to be followed by private rehab centres as envisaged in the Manipur State Policy on Psychoactive Substance 2019 to ensure human rights and justice for drug abuse survivors and also to direct the DGP, Manipur to instruct all the district police to prevent human rights violation.
Thus, the Commission has requested the DGP to direct all SPs and OCs to conduct regular check/en-quiry of private de-addiction/rehabilitation centres within the jurisdiction of the respective police stations to see that no person is either illegally detained or any other illegal activities are prevailing there.
The Commission also instructed the DGP to submit the subsequent report once every two months to the Director of the Social Welfare Department as well as other appropriate authorities.
In addition, the MHRC has further directed the Commissioner, Social Welfare Department to visit and supervise all the de-addiction centres within the State once every three months.
According to a status report submitted to the MHRC by the Director, Social Welfare Department, the Department had constituted a Committee with the Director as chairperson for recommending the registration of non-funded de-addiction centres operating in Manipur.
So far 48 Treatment and Rehabilitation of Users for Social Transformation (TRUST) Centres have been registered under the guidelines of the Department, according to a notification issued on November 21, 2023.The notification also directed all unregistered de-addic-tion/rehabilitation centres to stop taking new admission and to cease functioning after 3 months from the date of issue of the notification.
Going through other documents including the Gazette notification regarding the guideline for TRUST Centres, MHRC has determined that the Social Welfare Department has already framed specific guidelines on how and in what manner the private de-addiction centres have to be run in Manipur.
The MHRC also opined that the Department authorities are not properly discharging their duties as required, as evidenced during their visit to two private deaddiction centres yesterday where prevalence of illegal practices
were discovered.