'Clean campus-Safe campus' drive against drug abuse in Kerala

Kerala government today decided to launch an awareness campaign taking a serious note of large-scale sale of narcotic products in the vicinity of schools and colleges.
The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy here, State Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala told reporters.
Explaining details of the programme titled 'Clean campus-Safe Campus', to be launched jointly by Home and Education Departments, Chennithala said intelligence reports suggested that narcotic products like ganja, drugs and banned tobacco products were sold to students in large numbers.
The main objective of the programme was to wean the students away from the use of these products, he said. Chief Minister Chandy would inaugurate the programme here on June 13.

After an intelligence tip-off, Chennithala said 1386 centres selling illegal products were raided, 131 persons arrested and 134 cases registered.
The programme would be implemented through the School Vigilance Committees and Student Police Cadets, he said.

It was also planned to establish Student Police Cadets (SPC) system in aided, CBSE and unaided schools.
Presently SPC was functioning in government schools only. SPC consists of 44 students and annual cost for its function comes to around Rs two lakh, State Education Minister P K Abdu Rabb said.
Most schools have agreed to bear the cost for functioning of SPCs in their schools, he added.