Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday said drug problem was "more" in Pakistan bordering state of Punjab, even as he pointed out that the government was holding consultations with stakeholders to make narcotics laws more stringent.

Appreciating government's zero tolerance policy towards narcotics which he stressed was yeilding results given that contrabad seizure and arrests of peddlers have gone up substantially in recent times, Shah assured AAP ruled Punjab, whose chief minister Bhagwant Singh Man was also present at the two-day national conference in Chandigarh, of Centre's help in the battle against the drug menace.

"Everyone says the drug problem is more in Punjab, which is a border State. Therefore, we will have to make more efforts. We have to pull out the youth of Punjab from the drug menace.. If the State government allots land, the Centre will set up a forensic lab in Amritsar and a small centre of NCB for training purposes," he said inaugurating the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) organised conference on drug trafficking and national security.

Drug confiscation

Sharing statistics to show the efforts were paying results, the Minister said 1.52 lakh kg drugs were confiscated during 2006-2013 while 3.3 lakh kg drugs were seized in the 2014-2021 period. Similarly, ₹768 crore worth of contraband were seized between 2006-2013, while the figure went up to ₹20,000 crore for drugs seized from 2014 to 2021, he added.

Registered case have witnessed a 200 per cent jump and during the past seven years beginning from 2021 there has been a 260 per cent increase in arrests made, Shah told the gathering. Shah witnessed through vide conferencing destruction of nearly 31,000 kg of drugs estimated to be worth Rs 100 crore in Delhi, Chennai, Guwahati and Kolkata.

At the conference, the Minister also gave away awards to NCB, besides a narco canine team is also expected to be launched.

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