Read Governance Now magazine’s latest article on about how The Kalgidhar Trust, Baru Sahib, a standalone organization with a motive for Rural Transformation - is fighting Drugs through Education and running Drug Rehabilitation Centers that enable rehabilitation of children and youth addicted to drugs. Get hard hitting numbers of Drug addiction cases that have been registered and how Akal Drug De-addiction centers are working to curb this menace that is spread across Punjab and know the insights about how this organization is playing a major role in restoring this destroyed generation of drug-addicts.

1. people politics policy performance
Ray of Hope
A line of rural
academies is
tackling the
narcotics and
alcohol menace in
Punjab – a state
where nearly 70
percent households
have at least one
member addicted
to drugs
After drugs,
hooked to books!
Jasleen Kaur
T
he national media, and
as a corollary the nation,
woke up to the narcotic
menace prevalent in
Punjab when Congress
leader Rahul Gandhi
highlighted the issue a year ago. Addressing a rally in Sangrur, Punjab,
in October last year, Gandhi, now the
party’s vice-president, said seven out
of 10 youths in the state suffer from
drug problem.
Suddenly, the lid was off.
But what everyone missed in the hullabaloo was the simple yet stark fact
that the can was always full of worms
40 GovernanceNow | December 16-31, 2013
– at least it has been over the last few
decades. Or so it seems.
Ask Jagtar Singh, for instance. Now
17 and off addiction, Jagtar had barely
stepped into his teens when he started
consuming ‘bhukki’, a residue of opium, a very popular mode of addiction
that was easily available in his village
– Kakrala Bhaike in Patiala district –
like it is in most villages of the state.
From heroin and cocaine to pharmaceutical drugs – the boy took them all
in the next three years or so.
A rich landlord, Jagtar’s father was
one of the most prosperous men of
Kakrala Bhaike. Money, thus, was
never a problem. But graduating from
bhukki to other substances (throw in
alcohol to the list), and it drills a big
hole in your pocket – Jagtar admits
stealing money from home and, at one
point, spending as much as `1,000 a
day on drugs and alcohol.
Later, Jagtar says, he started getting
commission on sale of drugs to other
young children in the village: “If I
could add 10 children, I could get a
day’s dose for free.” So where did it all
start? Shockingly enough, at the government school in his village, where
he studied till class VI. “No one in our
school told us that drugs are harmful.
In fact, most of our teachers were on
heroin, alcohol and tobacco.”
Not all such addicts come from affluent families, though. Gagandeep Singh,
for instance, left studies in class V to
work at a tea stall for the money he
needed to buy drugs. Having caught
the addiction at the age of 12, for the
next five years he consumed anything
he could afford – bhukki, zarda, opium
and any capsule they can manage to
lay their hands on, he says.
It was not difficult to get them, says
the youth from Dhaula village in Barnala district. “There are known drug
peddlers in my village, and you can

2. Jagtar Singh (left) and Gagandeep
Singh (right) were among thousands of
Punjab’s youth who get hooked to drugs
while barely into their teens.
get over the counter capsules even at
medical stores,” he says. “Shopkeepers earlier sold prescription drugs and
capsules but now give it only to regular buyers.”
In Punjab, Jagtar and Gagandeep’s
story is as common as mustard fields
portrayal of the state for Hindi films.
The record books say a staggering
70 percent of the youth is hooked to
drugs, as Rahul Gandhi said in October
2012 citing an affidavit submitted by
the state government to the Punjab
and Haryana high court in 2009.
You name a drug and its use is
rampant in Punjab. And the problem cuts through the caste and class
barriers – as Jagtar and Gagandeep’s
cases highlight. So while the rich get
high on heroin and cocaine, the poor
depend more on bhukki, pharmaceutical drugs and injections. Many get
their daily dose from cough syrups
like Corex, Phensedyl or tablets like
Proxyvon – available over the counter.
According to a government estimate,
over 7,000 patients undergo treatment
at government and private drug de-addiction centres in the state every year.
The success rate is barely 30 percent.
After the treatment, experts say, most
patients either go back to drugs or get
addicted to pharmaceutical drugs they
are treated with (there are cases of
people getting hooked to even Iodex).
“De-addiction
centres are not
the solution
for children
like Jagtar
(an addict
who kicked
the habit). A
whole generation has been
destroyed because of drugs
but we can save the children
by treating them, and also
bringing them on the path of
value-based education.”
Jagjit Singh of Akal Academy in Sirmaur
who monitors rehabilitation of children
and youth addicted to drugs
Bypassing de-addiction centres
So what did Jagtar and Gagandeep do
differently? Unlike many others, these
boys did not take the de-addiction
centre route. Instead, they returned
to school, attending classes and also
undergoing vocational training to stay
away from narcotics.
“Many of my friends went to deaddiction centres, where they were
kept for six months. But only one of
them left drugs and started working
with his father. Others got back (to
addiction) after leaving the centre,”
Jagtar says.
Jagtar says his father put him in
Akal Academy in Sirmaur district
of Himachal, run by the Kalgidhar
trust, that has several such branches
in rural Punjab to help such children
and their families quit drugs through
value-based education. The academy,
he says, is even providing them skills
to take up jobs once they leave the
institutions.
In less than a year’s time, Jagtar
says he has changed “completely” – a
change that he would not have experienced had he taken the de-addiction
centre route. “It is not easy to quit
drugs,” clarifies Jagtar, now studying
the bridge course to appear for regular class X examination as also doing
a vocational course in management
system to improve his job prospects.
“I ruined precious years of my life
and till I didn’t know whether I have a
future,” now baptized, Jagtar says he is
studying free of cost.
“De-addiction centres are not the
solution for children like Jagtar,” says
Jagjit Singh, who monitors rehabilitation of children and youth addicted to
drugs at the academy in Sirmaur. “A
whole generation has been destroyed
because of drugs but we can save the
children by treating them, and also
bringing them on the path of valuebased education.”
Calling de-addiction centres a growing business in Punjab, he says valuebased education is “not just helping
them (drug addicts/victims) but also
inspiring elders in their family.”
He says it was not easy for the academy to bring Jagtar out of drugs: “He
would find reasons to go to the hospital in the academy and would steal
medicines to use as an alternative to
drugs. But we believe these children
recover faster when they study with
other children.”
Gagandeep was also able to get rid of
drugs earlier this year with the help of
www.GovernanceNow.com 41

3. people politics policy performance
Ray of Hope
one such academy in Cheema, a small
town, in Sangrur district of Punjab.
He subsequently took up a vocational
course in music and is completing his
studies simultaneously.
A school called hope
Jagjit Singh, who manages 30-odd
youth from Punjab at the academy in
Himachal Pradesh’s Sirmaur district,
says many children stay back to work
with the trust while some prefer to
return to their villages.
The problem of narcotics is not limited to the youth, he stresses: over 50
percent of the administrative staff at
the Sirmaur academy was once addicted to drugs.
“The police claim they seize large
quantity of drugs each year but a
large amount of it still finds its way to
these children,” he rues.
About the Akal Academy, Singh says
it started with just five students and
a single room in 1986 and today has
established a chain of schools in rural
Punjab. Though they all are established in villages, the schools, Singh
says, offer quality education at par
with the best schools in the vicinity.
So far, 129 schools have already been
established across the villages in the
state, of which 19 are senior secondary, 40 are till class VI or more, and 70
are primary and pre-primary-level institutions. In all, about 60,000 students
are enrolled in these 129 schools, with
the number increasing each year.
They are taught by about 4,650 teachers and other supporting staff.
Kalgidhar Trust opens schools till
class II to maintain the minimum quality requirements of the CBSE. Every
year, each school graduates to the next
class, with the required classrooms,
laboratories and other infrastructure
needs added accordingly.
All this is done without any financial
support from the government, say officials from the Trust.
The academy has 25 percent of
students from families hailing from
marginalised sections of the society with an annual income less than
`80,000 – these students are admitted
free of cost. This is a practice followed
much before the Right to Education
Act was implemented in the state. The
42 GovernanceNow | December 16-31, 2013
How big is the menace?
a 67% rural households in
Punjab have at least one drug
addict
a Household survey conducted
by International Classification
of Diseases of the UN (ICD)
indicates there is at least one
drug addict in 65% families
in Majha (comprising districts
Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn
Taran) and Doaba regions
(Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur,
Kapurthala)
a 64% families in Malwa region
(including Bathinda, Mansa,
Muktsar, Patiala, Sangrur
districts) have one addict each
a 3 out of 10 girls have abused
one or the other drug
a 66% school students consume
gutka or tobacco
a Nearly 7 out of every 10 college
students abuse drugs in some
form or the other
a A key reason is the easy
availability of drugs in Punjab
a The state’s proximity to
the nations in the ‘golden
crescent’ (Afghanistan and
Pakistan, which have a long
history of opium production)
has made it a transit point for
entry of drugs in the country.
The problem spreads to rest
of Punjab from the border
districts
a Till a few years back only the
border areas were affected by
drugs but now it has spread to
other districts as well
Source: State govt’s affidavit
submitted to Punjab and Haryana
high court in 2009
An academy in Cheema in Sangrur
district where drug rehabs study with
‘other’ children.
trust, officials say, is now working to
increase intake and admit another 25
percent children from economically
weaker sections.
The trust, officials say, now has its
eyes set on opening a total of 500 such
academies in villages of Punjab.
The organisation, Kalgidhar, was
founded by Teja Singh, a social activist
who returned to India after completing his education from Harvard University in 1963 with an aim to provide
education to village students. It was
registered as a trust in 1982.
Such is the significant role these
academies have played in bringing social change in villages that many now
want the trust to start such institutions
in their villages and are willing to provide land and other support.
Lessons against drugs
Besides playing a key role in helping
children and the youth to quit drugs,
these academies are also motivating
them to inspire other family members
to say no to all kinds of addiction.
Take Kangandeep Kaur, for instance.
The class VI student at the academy in
Cheema says she used to be scared of
her father, who often returned home
drunk and took “some form” of drugs.
As a result, she had never interacted
with him.

4. “We are taught (at school) that drugs
and alcohol make us handicapped; we
cannot think for our families and the
society. I have been part of anti-drug
rallies and street theatre conducted by
the school. But at home I used to see
my father drinking every day and getting violent. I was scared of him and
would never talk with him,” she says.
But one day, at dinner, Kangandeep
refused to share the table with her
father and that changed the life of
her family forever. “My mother had
pleaded umpteen times for him to quit
drugs and alcohol, but to no avail. I
did not know how to tell him. Two
years back, I decided to boycott him,
and that really affected him,” she says.
“Next day, he came to me and promised that he would quit alcohol and
drugs forever. I could not believe it, he
was an addict for more than 10 years!
But he kept his promise.”
Giving all credit to the young girl,
Kangandeep’s father, a smalltime
businessman, says: “Many people had
urged me but I could never quit. These
children are given value-based education (at Akal academy) and it’s because
of her that I could come out of it.”
There are many private schools
nearby but none really focus on valuebased education, says Gagandeep
Singh, another student at the academy. He also blames the government
for not doing enough to get rid of this
menace.
“Liquor and drugs are openly
Punjab’s de-addiction
centres
a 5 categories of deaddiction centres run in
Punjab: licensed centres
(approximately 35), centres
run by medical colleges,
psychiatric hospitals, centres
run by Red Cross and illegal
centres (in thousands).
a The authority to license deaddiction centres was set up
only two years ago – after
reports of patients dying of
physical torture.
a Dr Col Rajinder Singh, who
runs a licensed de-addiction
centre at Cheema Sahib,
Sangrur, says most illegal
centres give only custodial
care where patients are
often beaten or are given
substitutes of drugs they are
addicted to.
distributed to swing votes during
elections and a whole generation has
succumbed to this,” says Gagandeep,
who lost his father because of drugs
and alcohol. “In fact, the sarpanch
or the panchayat of some villages get
commission on sale of liquor.”
Manjeet Kaur, principal of the academy at Cheema, which has over 1,700
children, says though many states
face the problem, consumption is
high mainly because the state has the
problem of plenty. “People have a lot
of money here (in Punjab). And with
education having long taken a backseat along with high unemployment,
the youth get easily attracted to drugs
accessible in the state,” she said.
At another village, Fategarh Ganduan in Sangrur district, Rajveer Singh
says he moved his children from a private school to the Akal Academy two
years ago. The reason, he says, was
the increasing drug problem among
schoolchildren. “Students sell drugs
outside their schools, and you cannot
keep eye on your children 24 hours.
There are many private schools in
and around our village but the kind of
education and social environment this
academy is providing our children is
not available anywhere.
“In return, they hardly charge
anything.”
Harvinder Singh, the village sarpanch, says 40 percent of the 600
households in the village are affected
by drugs at one point. “Drugs like
heroin and smack aren’t the only
problem. A large number of people get
their daily fix from medicine shops as
well. People often say that two things
open early in Punjab – liquor shops
and medicine shops.”
Illegal chemist shops in Punjab have
been raided regularly but most end up
reopening within a few weeks.
Stressing that the academy has
helped saving many children from
taking the drugs route, sarpanch Harvinder Singh says: “Families in Punjab
are now looking hard for quick-fix
solutions for their children to come
out of drugs. And when we are unable
to see the political will to address this
menace, academies run by the trust
are proving to be a savior for many. It
would, however, be a long time before
we can call Punjab a drugs-free state.”
Till then, the Akal academies are taking nano-steps to do the needful – in
whatever small way. n
jasleen@governancenow.com
www.GovernanceNow.com 43