Srinagar, Nov 10: Striving towards generating awareness over the nuisance of substance abuse and tobacco addiction in Jammu and Kashmir, J&K Bank on Friday launched an initiative named “Najaath” for a drug free society.
The project Najaath which means ‘freedom or getting rid of drugs’ was launched by the J&K Bank MD&CEO Baldev Prakash in presence of Director Health Services Kashmir, Director/ Joint Director Education Kashmir while the Director Health Services Jammu and Director Education Jammu addressed the event launch via Video Conferencing from Jammu.
The initiative comes up in collaboration with the Department of Health Services J&K and cooperation of the Education Department, Govt. of J&K.
“Najaath forms a very ambitious and crucial step towards working together to make our society drug free. The campaign Najaath that we have launched today aims at saving our children from drug abuse. As the name suggests Najaath is an initiative to proffer all our children freedom from drugs. This project will play a vital role in creating awareness pertaining to substance abuse. We have taken a very important step and the J&K bank pledges to disseminate awareness across the society under its corporate social responsibility”, said Baldev Prakash, Managing Director and CEO J&K adding that “ We all need to come together under this initiative to script success through this campaign. Let us work towards achieving our goal of eradicating the menace of drug abuse from our society”.
Speaking on the occasion, Sudhir Gupta, Executive Director J&K Bank said that the minacious and threatening proportions involved with drug abuse needed to be addressed in a serious manner to save children from falling victim to it.
“Drug menace has reached dangerous proportions and by launching this campaign under CSR, we aim to compliment the efforts of govt institutions and other non-governmental organisations towards the eradication of drugs and other substance abuse .We strive to achieve its objective to the satisfaction of other stakeholders.” Sudhir Gupta said.
He said J&K bank being a socially responsible corporation is very sensitive to the commitments towards the society. :Through this initiative we come together and work towards a drug free society.”
Hailing J&K Bank’s initiative, Director Health Kashmir, Dr Mushtaq Ahmad said that a joint effort was a prerequisite in making the region drug free.
“Through Najaath campaign that was launched today, we have to get rid of drug abuse and smoking addiction. We have chosen two districts from Jammu and Kashmir one from Jammu and one from Kashmir from where we shall start a pilot project. The best part of the campaign is that it does not include awareness only , however it is an awareness cum curative initiative”, Dr Mushtaq Ahmad, Director Health Kashmir said.
He expressed his gratitude towards JK Bank for embarking on an initiative to see a drug free UT.
“It is not a single person’s job, we all have to come together to initiate a fight against the menace that has devastated our younger generations. This is vital to eradicate drug abuse from our society”, he said.
Addressing the event through video conferencing Director education and director health Jammu expressed happiness and appreciated the beginning of the initiative against drug menace.
“This is an initiative towards saving our children. Our aim will be to educate our students to get them out of this vicious nuisance.” Dr Ravi Shankar Sharma, Director Education Jammu said.
