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Thiruvananthapuram | The Kerala government has accorded sanction for launching the State Narcotic Control Bureau under the Excise Department, officials said on Saturday.

An order issued by the Taxes Department on July 17 said the State Narcotic Control Bureau (State NCB) has been set up to modernise the Excise Department's functioning in preventing and investigating Abkari and narcotic offences and to separate tax collection from law enforcement duties for more effective action against organised drug crimes.

As per the order, the headquarters of the State NCB will function from the Excise Commissionerate in Thiruvananthapuram, with the Excise Commissioner holding full charge as its head.

The Additional Excise Commissioner (Administration), Administrative Officer and Finance Officer of the Excise Commissionerate will also hold the corresponding additional charges in the State NCB.

According to the order, the bureau will commence operations by redeploying 367 existing posts and assigning additional charge to 22 posts, taking the total sanctioned strength to 389.

The State NCB will have specialised wings for operations, intelligence, research and analysis, and cyber intelligence and cyber operations at the headquarters.

The operations wing will be headed by the Joint Excise Commissioner (Awareness Programme Coordination) as Joint Director, while the intelligence wing will be headed by the Joint Excise Commissioner (Intelligence Bureau), the order said.

The research and analysis wing will be headed by the Joint Excise Commissioner of the Excise Crime Records Bureau, officials said.

The cyber intelligence and cyber operations wing will focus on cyber-enabled narcotics investigations.

The government has also authorised the excise commissioner to constitute a voluntary cyber volunteer team comprising IT professionals, academicians, students and retired officials with expertise in cyber security, ethical hacking, digital forensics, data analytics and artificial intelligence to provide technical assistance within the legal framework, officials said.

District-level operations and intelligence units of the State NCB will also be established across Kerala by redeploying personnel from the existing Excise Enforcement and Anti-Narcotic Special Squads and Intelligence units.

Assistant Excise Commissioners in each district will hold additional charge as Assistant Directors (Operations) of the State NCB.

The government has directed the Excise Commissioner to take immediate steps to complete the redeployment of personnel and operationalise the State NCB.