NEW DELHI : A total 20.8 lakh kg of narcotic drugs, seized by various drug law enforcement agencies across the country, were destroyed between 2022 and 2024, the home ministry informed the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
While a record 8.6 lakh kg of drugs were destroyed in 2022, the quantity went down to 7.6 lakh kg in 2023 and further to 4.5 lakh in 2024, junior home minister Nityanand Rai said in written reply to a question.
Meanwhile, answering another question, Rai shared that 96 cases of drugs being trafficked via Darknet platform were interdicted by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) between 2020and 2024.
“A task force on Darknet and crypto-currency has been set up under the multi agency centre (MAC) mechanism with a focus on monitoring all platforms facilitating narco-trafficking, sharing of inputs on drug trafficking amongst agencies/MAC members, interception of drug networks, continuous capturing of trends, modus operandi & nodes with regular database updates and review of related rules & laws,” he said.
Sharing data on narcotics seized in the five-year period between 2018 and 2022, Rai said the total seizures of opium-based drugs increased from 2 lakh kg in 2018 to 3.3 lakh kg in 2022, while that of cannabis-based drugs rose from 12.2 lakh kg to 17.1 lakh kg. The seizures of psychotropic substances and cocaine, however, fell from 448 kg to 71.8 kg and that of psychotropic substances, from 37,686 kg to 3,043 kg, over the same period.
