The national narco canine pool will initially start with raising a unit of about 70 dogs (File)
India will soon have a 'national narco canine pool' with 70 dogs of various breeds being trained by experts to sniff out drugs in various operational scenarios, officials said.
The pool of narcotics detection dogs (NDDs) will be raised in collaboration with the K9 (canine) cell of the Union home ministry, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and counter-terrorist force National Security Guard (NSG).
The plan was first mooted during a review conducted by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in December last year on the overall narcotics, drug abuse and trafficking scenario in the country.
The national narco canine pool will initially start with raising a unit of about 70 dogs that will be posted with the NCB across its various field units in the country, an official involved in the exercise told PTI.
This plan also aims to train NDDs and narcotics detection dog teams for various state government agencies and counter-narcotics units, as per requirement, he said.
This will be the first time that India will have a national pool of narcotics detection dogs who can be deployed for sniffing out contraband that come in large shipments at sea ports, airports and cross-border land stations and even large trucks and vehicles running cross-country, a second officer said.
The second officer added that the narcotics canines will be drawn from various local and foreign breeds, and they will be essentially deployed to test drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, MDMA and ecstacy among others.
"Dogs, at present, are used in a very limited capacity in detecting concealed narcotics. Various agencies have different standards. Some even do not have a standard operating procedure for deploying dogs for drug duties.
"So, the national narco canine pool is aimed to coordinate and address the vacuum here by sharing technology and raising dogs for states and federal agencies from the training institutions of central paramilitary forces and the NSG," the first officer said.
The NCB, the federal anti-narcotics agency, plans to depute at least two such trained dogs at each of its over 30 zonal and sub-zonal offices, he said.