Drug-free India by 2029: Centre rolls out 3-year roadmap with 4 pillars, 25 components, 200-plus action points

Shimla (Himachal Pradesh), September 19, 2026 (ANI): The Centre has set a 2029 target for making India drug-free and has prepared a three-year, time-bound roadmap for 2026-29, with four key pillars, 25 components and more than 200 action points covering enforcement, synthetic and chemical drugs, demand reduction, harm reduction, capacity building and inter-agency coordination.

The roadmap was outlined during a media interaction on the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan 2029 organised in Shimla by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Friday. Additional Director General, PIB and Chief Media and Communication, Ministry of Home Affairs, Raj Kumar, and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) North Zone Zonal Director Amanjeet Singh were the main speakers.

The officials said the campaign envisages a “Whole of Government” and “Whole of Society” approach, bringing together central and state governments, law-enforcement agencies, security forces, educational and medical institutions, youth organisations and the wider community.

Raj Kumar said the campaign was being undertaken under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the leadership of Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah.
“The Government of India has set the target of making India drug-free by 2029,” he said, adding that a comprehensive roadmap and action plan for 2026-29 had been prepared with clearly defined responsibilities, accountability and timelines for central ministries, state governments and other stakeholders.
He said the vision document had been prepared following extensive consultations with state governments, concerned agencies and more than 35 ministries and departments of the Union government.

The implementation mechanism, he said, would operate through the National Committee for Coordination of Drug Trafficking (NCORD), with its Apex Committee headed by the Union Home and Cooperation Minister overseeing the programme at the highest level.

The NCB would have a leading role in the campaign, supported by the Union Home Ministry, state governments, local and district police, security forces, the Ministry of External Affairs and other concerned agencies, Kumar said.

He said the Centre had previously accorded high priority to tackling Left-Wing Extremism and was now focusing on drug trafficking and substance abuse as a major national priority.

“After the objective of ending Left-Wing Extremism, the next major priority is to make the country drug-free,” Kumar said.

He acknowledged that eliminating the drug menace posed challenges but said the Centre had established a fixed timeframe, assigned responsibilities to agencies and put monitoring mechanisms in place.

The first pillar focuses on intelligence- and operation-based enforcement, with emphasis on identifying and dismantling drug-trafficking networks rather than dealing only with individual seizures.
Amanjeet Singh said the approach would be network-centric, with enforcement agencies targeting the financial infrastructure of drug networks through seizure, freezing and confiscation of assets.
The roadmap also targets bringing back 100 top fugitives by 2029 who are operating from outside India and are involved in drug-related activities targeting the country, he said.
The second pillar focuses on chemical and synthetic drugs. Singh said the programme would target clandestine laboratories involved in manufacturing synthetic drugs and strengthen monitoring of precursor chemicals.

A major objective would be to establish 100 per cent digital visibility of precursor drugs from the stage of manufacturing to consumption, with the aim of preventing their diversion for illicit use.

The third pillar relates to demand reduction, harm reduction and awareness. It includes public awareness initiatives, measures to reduce the harmful consequences of drug use and strengthening of de-addiction and rehabilitation facilities.

The fourth pillar focuses on capacity building and coordination, including strengthening Anti-Narcotics Task Forces (ANTFs), enhancing forensic capabilities and improving coordination between enforcement agencies.

Singh said accountability would be an important feature of this pillar, with quarterly reviews and scorecards planned to monitor progress at the highest level.

A key target under the roadmap is to ensure that every state has a fully equipped Anti-Narcotics Task Force by March 2027, officials said.

The Centre has also set a target of making forensic reports available within 30 days, which is intended to strengthen the investigation and prosecution of narcotics-related cases.

Another component of the campaign is mobilisation of young people through the NCC, NSS and My Bharat platforms, with a target of creating one lakh ‘Nasha Mukt Mitras’ to support awareness and community-level participation.

The government also intends to work towards making school and college campuses drug-free, with a 500-metre radius around educational institutions identified as a proposed safe zone under the campaign.
Kumar said the objective was to prevent the drug menace from reaching educational institutions and to involve young people directly in awareness and prevention activities.

He said the campaign would not be restricted to enforcement agencies, stressing that the participation of educational institutions, medical institutions and society was equally important.
Singh said the NCORD mechanism was a critical component of coordination, particularly in cases involving multiple states.

Issues having an inter-state dimension can be taken up through the apex-level NCORD mechanism, where they can be discussed and resolutions worked out, he said.

Himachal Pradesh is also part of an inter-state drug secretariat comprising Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and neighbouring Uttarakhand, Singh said.

The secretariat is already operational in Panchkula and is being used to improve coordination among the participating states and Union Territory, he said.

The NCB, as the national nodal agency for narcotics control, has a major responsibility for coordination in addition to enforcement, Singh said.

“We are working in the fields where requirements of individual states have been identified,” he said, adding that the agency was coordinating with state-level authorities as part of the broader national campaign.
Singh said the ‘Drug-Free India by 2029’ vision document was released by Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the 10th Apex Committee meeting of NCORD on June 26, 2026.

The 2026-29 document lays out the roadmap for narcotics control and provides the framework for implementing the campaign over the next three years, he said.
Elaborating on the enforcement component, Singh said the strategy would move beyond individual drug seizures and concentrate on the larger networks responsible for trafficking.
This includes identifying the networks, dismantling their operations and attacking their financial structures through seizure, freezing and confiscation of assets.

On synthetic drugs, he said the NCB would focus on clandestine laboratories as well as the supply chain of precursor chemicals.

Digital tracking of precursor substances would seek to provide visibility across the entire chain, from manufacturing to consumption, thereby reducing the possibility of diversion into illegal drug production.
He said forensic capacity would also be strengthened to support narcotics investigations and ensure faster processing of cases.

The presentation made during the media interaction highlighted the increase in enforcement action in recent years.
According to the figures presented, when compared with the 2004-2013 period, the quantity of drugs seized has increased 4.6 times, the value of seizures has increased 4.7 times, while the quantity of drugs destroyed has increased 14.4 times.

Singh said the objective of the new roadmap was to further integrate intelligence, enforcement, financial investigation, forensic capabilities, prevention, rehabilitation and inter-state coordination into a unified national framework.

Kumar said the government recognised that enforcement alone would not be sufficient to address the drug problem and therefore the vision document had adopted a “Whole of Government” and “Whole of Society” approach.
Under this approach, government agencies would work alongside schools, colleges, medical institutions, youth organisations and communities.
The campaign is currently in its initial implementation phase following the release of the vision document in June, Kumar said.

The government is now reaching out to states and Union Territories through media interactions to explain the roadmap and encourage wider public participation.
“State governments and agencies are already involved, but the objective is to bring every section of society into the campaign,” he said.

Kumar said the participation of young people through NCC, NSS and My Bharat would be an important part of the awareness campaign, while the one-lakh ‘Nasha Mukt Mitras’ target would provide a wider community network for the initiative.

He also reiterated the importance of the proposed 500-metre safe zone around schools and colleges, saying the aim was to prevent drugs from entering the immediate environment of educational institutions.

The officials said the 2026-29 roadmap would therefore combine enforcement against trafficking networks, financial disruption, action against synthetic drugs and precursor diversion, awareness and harm reduction, de-addiction, youth mobilisation, forensic strengthening and inter-state coordination, with periodic reviews and defined timelines.

Kumar said the Centre would continue taking the campaign to different states and Union Territories through media outreach so that the government-led initiative develops into a wider public movement aimed at achieving the 2029 drug-free India target. (ANI)