Govt gets 2 months to notify new rules

NEWDELHI: The Delhi government is in the process of formulating state mental healthcare rules to regulate de-addiction centres in the city. The move came after the Delhi High Court directed the government to formulate policy to keep a check on such centres so as to prevent human rights violations.

Till now, such centres in Delhi did not need any regulatory approval.

The government on Friday asked the court for three months to notify the rules, the court granted two. The extra time was needed as the draft that the government came up with in April was found to inadequate.

“The draft rules that had already been put out in the public domain drew power from the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, which does not really allow for licensing the centres but recognising them for the treatment of addicts caught with minimum quantity of contraband substances,” said a Delhi government official on condition of anonymity.

Any draft that draws power from the NDPS act would not be able to control centres treating alcohol, tobacco or inhalant addictions, which are the major addictions in Delhi.

In Delhi, 69.7% of street children are addicted to tobacco, 39.2% to inhalants and 23.1% to alcohol, according to a 2013 study sponsored by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights.

“Hence, it was felt that the mental healthcare act would be a better fit, as any centres that we registered under the NDPS act would also have to be registered under the Mental Healthcare Act,” said the official.

The Union government in the meantime has already notified its act along with the rules and regulations.

This might mean that the Delhi government would have to redraft its mental healthcare rules to align it with central rules. “We have kept a provision in our state rules that will allow us to review the standards once the central government comes up with its rules,” the official said.

Under the new draft, Delhi government’s ‘Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences’ (IHBAS), which is the state mental health authority, has set minimum standards for three categories of de-addiction centres in the proposed rules.

The de-addiction centres in the city will have to seek registration from the state authority under three categories – acute treatment centre that provides short term treatment for de-addiction and withdrawal symptoms, long stay facilities where a patient can stay for one month or more for detoxification, and dual treatment facility where people dealing with addiction who have other mental illness will be treated.