1,800 students aged 7-10 in corporation schools ‘addicted’

NEW DELHI: Education department officials at the north corporation initially refused to believe that Kamlesh (name changed), a Class III student at a municipal school in Rohini, was consuming ‘solutions’ for getting a high. However, they were soon proved wrong. Unfortunately, 7-year-old Kamlesh is not the only boy in his age group to become a victim of substance abuse.
“Now we admit that the problem exists. Only after acceptance, we can work towards a solution,” said a senior official. Over a thousand students in the age group of 7-10 years in the primary schools run by the three corporations have been identified to be consuming addictive substances like inhalers, solutions (cough syrup), spirit, tobacco and gutka during an ongoing screening process being monitored by Juvenile Justice Committee.

The screening, being carried out on the directions of the Delhi high court, has identified over 348 kids in primary schools under the east corporation. The count for the north is 381 in 85 schools while 179 children have been identified in some south corporation schools. In the past two years, the south corporation itself had identified 912 kids, taking the total number to 1,820.
The real number could be higher as a sample of 17,000-18,000 students in the ‘most vulnerable areas’ is being considered for each corporation while 1,660 corporation primary schools cater to over 7 lakh students, mostly from the underprivileged sections.
With almost no counsellor at these schools, the corporations are staring at a tough job. Against the sanctioned strength of just 26 posts in its 715 schools, the north corporation has just eight counsellors. “Even finding qualified candidates becomes a task. We could find just 17 eligible candidates, out of which only nine joined. One of them has already left,” said an official. Out of 10 posts for educational and vocational guidance counsellors for 365 east corporation schools, only four are working.
“As the children are so young, it becomes a massive task to rehabilitate them and counselling has to be done in the presence of parents,” said Swati Sharma, a counsellor working in Rohini. Pointing out that most of the kids are not habitual drug addicts but have picked it up from the surroundings, she added that in some rare cases, relatives themselves had sent kids to fetch ‘stuff’. The entire Rohini zone has just two counsellors.
The corporations are now getting 1,400 teachers trained by AIIMS and IHBAS (Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences) to identify these kids. They are focusing on the most sensitive areas.
Dr Nimesh Desai, director of IHBAS who has conducted several such sessions, said a network of trained teachers, nurses and doctors going for regular checkups should be ideal to identify children at an early stage. But due to the nature of the problem and societal attitude, this strategy often doesn’t work, he added. “Kids are so young that they don’t show clear manifesting signs while parents remain reluctant due to stigma.”
The most vulnerable areas include places like Seemapuri, Nand Nagri, Kalyanpuri, Zafrabad , Dilshad Garden, Usmanpur, Jahangirpuri, Sultanpuri, Mangolpuri and Chhajupur.
“It is necessary to get the kids de-addicted early. After reaching teenage, they get totally addicted and start indulging in crimes to satisfy the cravings,” a health department official said. However, none of the major corporation facilities, including Hindu Rao, Rajan Babu, Girdharilal, Balak Ram and Kasturba hospitals, has a drug abuse treatment centre or counselling facilities.
“The resource crunch is such that we can’t ensure a follow-up. We can’t even visit a school twice in a year. In extreme cases, we call the parents but they too remain in denial. We can only recommend the kids be taken to a specilaised facility,” said a counsellor.