Govt fails to set up excise police station

Separation of narcotics control and excise dept not implemented

RAWALPINDI:

Like the rest of the province, Rawalpindi city has yet to get an excuise police station exclusively meant to deal with narcotics and illegal liquor cases.

Punjab Excise department has failed to establish narcotics police stations across the province this year too.

The government also did not fully implement its decision to split the excise, taxation, and narcotics control ministry into separate departments.

This year, the Punjab government had disconnected the narcotics control department from excise, taxation to improve performance. Masoodul Haq was appointed as the director-general of the narcotics control department.

The services of the employees who were transferred to the narcotics control department have now been returned after 18 months. The only narcotics police station was established in Lahore however no drug-related case was registered there during the whole year. The arms purchased for the staff of the narcotics police station couldn’t be distributed.

Further, the department remained unsuccessful in achieving targets of property and token taxes this year due to the coronavirus situation.

Therefore, a crackdown against the defaulters has been launched.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2020.