NCB gets six new supervisory posts

New Delhi, Feb 14 (PTI) The Centre has sanctioned six new supervisory posts for the federal anti-narcotics agency NCB to help it better combat the menace of drugs abuse, trafficking and trade with the overall addition of more than 400 posts, officials said Tuesday.

The Union Home ministry, in an order issued on February 13, has sanctioned creation of the first-ever single post of Additional Director General (ADG) and five more deputy director general (DDG) in the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

Official sources told PTI that the Union Cabinet has cleared creation of these posts after a meeting last month and the ministry of home affairs (MHA) has now notified them.

The agency, as of now, has five DDG posts and the new sanctioned five DDG rank officers will head field formations and emerging domains of dark net and crypto currency used for the illegal trade of drugs within and outside the borders of the country, the sources said.

The NCB that was setup in March, 1986 is headed by a Director General (DG) rank officer who is deputed from the Indian Police Service (IPS).

The Union Home ministry recently informed Parliament that 419 new posts at various levels have been sanctioned in the NCB apart from creation of four new regional offices for the agency at Amritsar (Punjab), Guwahati (Assam), Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and Ahmedabad (Gujarat).

Five new zonal offices for the NCB have been sanctioned to be created at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, New Jalpaiguri in West Bengal, Agartala (Tripura), Pasighat/Lower Siang in Arunachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh’s capital Raipur.

The plan also envisages upgradation of a dozen sub zones located at Dehradun (Uttarakhand), Amritsar (Punjab), Mandi (Himachal Pradesh), Ajmer (Rajasthan), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Imphal (Manipur), Panaji (Goa), Mandsaur (Madhya Pradesh), Kochi (Kerala), Madurai (Tamil Nadu) and Hyderabad (Telangana) to zones, according to the sanctioned blueprint.