Ranchi, Sept. 7: Recognising tobacco as the biggest threat to the country’s billions, one of the state and the country’s premiere psychiatric institutions — Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry and Allied Sciences (Rinpas) — has decided to open the first “tobacco control centre” to help willing people kick the habit.

Rinpas plans to rope in experts — psychiatrists and counsellors — to help addicts with a regimen comprising counselling, guidance and medical treatment. “If the plan goes on smoothly, we should be able to make the centre functional by the first week of November, 2008,” Ashok Kumar Prasad, the director of Rinpas, told The Telegraph.

Till recently, Rinpas only had a narcotics de-addiction centre, where patients addicted to alcohol, cannabis, brown sugar and other substances received medical care.

But, the institute recognised the threat posed by tobacco recently when it conducted a survey.

“The survey showed that more than 70 per cent of Jharkhand’s adult population, including women, were addicted to some form of tobacco. The doctors found the situation alarming and thus understood that it needed medical attention,” said S. Choudhary, a psychiatrist of Rinpas.

Despite the centre’s many directives against the use of tobacco, the habit, either in the form of cigarettes, snuff or gutkha, continues unabated in the country.

The centre, for now, however, would not have a different building and would be functioning in the Rinpas building itself.

Tobacco addiction apart, state doctors are also worried by the increasing instances of stress and tension related illnesses in Jharkhand.

“It is a trend that is showing in all strata. More patients are seeking counselling nowadays,” said N.N. Agrawal, the director of Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS). However, he believed the number of people seeking counselling was still less than the actual number of people who required treatment.

Rinpas and Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP), Kanke, apart, even RIMS has a psychiatry department. Agrawal added that the RIMS management is mulling a move to equip the department with more experts in order to cater to the counselling needs of an increased population.

The Rinpas, meanwhile, completed 83 years as an institution of mental healthcare last Thursday. Students and teachers organised a symposium on substance abuse and its solution on the occasion.