By Amresh Srivastava
New Delhi, Jan 25 (IANS): With an aim to prevent drug smuggling in the country, the government has sanctioned over 1,600 posts of various levels to effectively expand the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).
Further, it has been learnt that the government has also given nod to set up a specialised cyber wing to track and crackdown on the drug smuggling activities through Darknet and crypto currency.
NCB sources said that the agency had sent a proposal to the government in October 2021 for sanction of over 3,000 posts for the long-awaited expansion of the organisation and to set up around 18 zonal and sub-zonal offices across the country.
As per expansion plan, the NCB mulls to set up more zonal offices, to be headed by Deputy Director General level officers in all states for effective control against the drug menace in the country.
The officials in the bureau also said that NCB's proposed cyber-wing will be headed by a separate Deputy DG level officer, and will coordinate with other agencies including the intelligence agencies in the country, a senior official said.
It will have cyber-forensic capabilities like retrieval of deleted data from laptops, mobile phones and servers, and various tools to decrypt the codified messages, he added.
The officials also said that the zonal office will be set up in a phase manner in each state to be headed by a Zonal Director.
The NCB is also planning to have an intelligence wing of 100 officers. Initially officers will be hired from the states' police and para-military forces on deputation basis.
Similarly, a team of sniffer dogs to detect drugs and contrabands during the raid will be included. For the purpose, dogs from K9 and other Indian breeds will be adopted by the bureau.
Currently, the NCB has five Deputy DG level officers who report to DG NCB. Soon, more Deputy DG will be deputed to look after the zonal offices and it is expected that by the end of the year at least two Deputy DGs will start heading the two different zonal offices, the officials said.