Speaking at the third National Conference of Anti-Narcotics Task Force Heads in New Delhi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has set a deadline for India’s war against drugs. By December 31, 2029, he said, he wants the country’s narcotics trade done away for good.
Shah told the assembled police chiefs, essentially, that spreadsheets won’t move them the way a grieving family will. One of the bigger pushes is the Nashamukt Mitra programme. In a room packed with police chiefs from 36 states and Union Territories, Shah said, “Neither will we allow a single gram of drugs to enter India, nor will we allow a single gram of drugs to go out. Go sit with a mother whose son ranked in the top 10 in his Class 10 boards, he said, and now she’s watching him disappear into addiction. He tied all of it back to Prime Minister Modi’s 2047 vision for a developed India, pointing out that a nation with the youngest population on earth can’t get there if that same population is being hollowed out by narcotics. The government’s roadmap, the Vision Document 2026-2029, rests on four pillars: enforcement and intelligence, controlling precursor chemicals and synthetic drugs, reducing demand and harm, and building up capacity across the system. Officials say it contains over 100 individual targets. With nearly 47,000 volunteers registered so far, it is working towards a goal of 1 lakh. Their job over the coming months will be to visit about 10 lakh schools and colleges and talk directly to students and brief the campus staff.
That, Shah said, is when the fight stops being a job and starts being personal.
