Pakistani Minister for Narcotics Control Ghaus Bux Maher on Thursday said that poppy cultivation had been almost eliminated in Pakistan and the country would become poppy free next year, local media reported.

In 2006, Pakistani authorities had destroyed poppy grown on some 3,000 acres in different areas in North West Frontier Province and southwestern Pakistan's Baluchistan province, said the minister, quoted by the Associated Press of Pakistan.

The Pakistani government has taken concrete steps to persuade poppy growers to switch over to alternative crops and those efforts have produced positive results, the minister was quoted as saying.

Some 247 heroin labs had been destroyed since last year and there was no such clandestine unit functioning now in Pakistan, according to the APP report.

The Pakistan government had also installed modern special equipment on borders for more effective crackdown on drug proliferation, the report said.

At present there were around four million drug addicts in Pakistan, including 0.5 million heroin consumers, and 78 rehabilitation and treatment centers for drug addicts were functioning in the country, it said.

Source: Xinhua