The NCB is directly under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. Its Director General is Rakesh Asthana, an IPS officer from the Gujarat cadre (1984). There are three Deputy Directors General under Asthana. They are:
- B Radhika (IPS, Odisha,1989), Headquarters, ER
- RN Srivastava (IRS, C&CE, 1992), Operations, NR
- Mutha Ashok Jain (IPS, UP, 1995), SWR.
Then there are three Deputy Directors and nine Zonal Directors.
The NCB’s field units and offices are organised by zones and are located in Mumbai, Indore, Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, Lucknow, Jodhpur, Chandigarh, Jammu, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Guwahati and Patna. There are also 12 sub-zonal offices across the country.
Total sanctioned strength of NCB is more than 1,100 officials (as of a reply in Lok Sabha from the MHA on January 2, 2018).
THE HELPING HANDS
The agency also has its own intelligence units, spread across India. They belong to the Narcotics Intelligence Bureau CID (NIB-CID) which is attached to the state police. This section, however, has seen a steep decline in personnel, and as it is, intelligence gathering has been hampered.
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As per a March 6, 2019 report in a newspaper, the Chennai intelligence unit, for example, was battling a 90 percent vacancy. Against the sanctioned strength of 28 personnel the unit had just three. Across the state, NIB-CID had only 77 personnel, against the sanctioned strength of 228. The situation is no different in other parts. The NCB, therefore, can get assistance from local police forces and can log into their local intelligence networks. That gives the NCB a bigger reach.