Haryana government on Tuesday set up a ‘Sankalp’ society, a single authority to spearhead the fight against drugs and protect the state’s youth and vulnerable sections from substance abuse and narcotics, officials said.
Chief minister Nayab Singh Saini will be the chairperson of Sankalp (or substance abuse and narcotics knowledge, awareness and liberation programme) society, while the government has handpicked former Haryana director general of police (DGP) OP Singh as chief executive officer (CEO) of the multi-sectoral apex body.
The CEO will have a tenure of up to three years, while the chief principal secretary or principal secretary to chief minister will serve as vice-chairperson of the high-powered panel.
Before superannuating in December last year, Singh, a 1992-batch IPS officer, also headed the Haryana State Narcotics Control Bureau (HSNCB), where he spearheaded a number of innovative and impactful programmes to combat drug trafficking and abuse. These included ‘Chakravyuh’, an escape-room-style game aimed at teaching teenagers to resist drugs. He also conceived and led mass-participation drives across the state, including a 22-day-long cyclothon, “Namak Lota Jattha” campaign, besides organising marathons and a car-free ‘Raahgiri’ movement across the state.
“The Sankalp society will function as a nodal body of the state for prevention of substance abuse, awareness, coordination of anti-narcotics efforts, treatment, and rehabilitation,” said the September 28 notification published in the Haryana government gazette.
{{/usCountry}}“The Sankalp society will function as a nodal body of the state for prevention of substance abuse, awareness, coordination of anti-narcotics efforts, treatment, and rehabilitation,” said the September 28 notification published in the Haryana government gazette.
{{/usCountry}}The objectives of the society are to “Protect Haryana’s youth, future generations and vulnerable groups” from substance abuse and narcotics, while reducing both demand and supply of narcotics.
Action plan of society
The Sankalp society has been tasked to build as well as implement a comprehensive state action plan, covering prevention, education, enforcement coordination, treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration, while promoting awareness through community participation and building a citizen-led movement against substance abuse involving villages, wards, schools, colleges and youth clubs, local influencers, religious leaders, resident welfare bodies and grassroots institutions.
Under the Sankalp society will be an executive committee to serve as the executive arm of the panel for coordination, monitoring and timely execution of its decisions. The executive committee will function under the supervision of the society. The CEO of the society will be its chairperson and there will be 12 members from different departments.
Officials said that with the setting up of this society, Haryana’s campaign against drugs will have a one owner as this body will coordinate prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and enforcement across 11 departments such as home, health, school and higher education, social justice, women and child development, sports and youth affairs, panchayats and urban local bodies.
The administrative secretaries of these departments will be ex officio members of the society and additional director general of police (ADGP) of the HSNCB member secretary.
Accountability and coordination
Officials say the move to set up this society is noteworthy as the chain of command of the fight against drugs will now be in the hands of the society which was not the case thus far. “Until now, each department was running its own anti-drug work. The police handled arrests, the health department ran de-addiction centres, schools held awareness sessions, and panchayats ran their own campaigns. Sankalp brings all of them under one plan, one fund and one set of targets,” said officials who decided the contours of the action plan of the society.
Haryana registered 3,738 Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) cases and arrested 6,801 people in 2025. Investigation, search, seizure and arrest will remain with the police and HSNCB and the new body’s focus will be on prevention and community action, giving depth to the anti-drugs campaigns.
The Sankalp society will have three priority goals a year and progress achieved will be the first item of agenda in every monthly meeting of the society and its executive committee.
The society has been designed to reach the grassroots without adding new layers and discharge its functions in coordination with, and ‘without duplication of’, the state-level narco-coordination centre (NCORD) committee chaired by the chief secretary. District NCORD committees, headed by deputy commissioners, will double as district Sankalp committees. They will run awareness drives, school audits and de-addiction referrals, and send monthly reports to a state dashboard. At the state level, the chief secretary-led NCORD committee will review Sankalp’s progress at every meeting.
Box:
As per official data, in 2025 Haryana registered 3,738 first information reports (FIRs) under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and arrested 6,801 persons. Haryana seized 204 kg heroin between January 2019 and December 2024, pointing towards the rising scale of drug trafficking in the state which is emerging as a key transit and consumption hub for narcotics.
According to the data, the number of youth in the 18-30 age group who registered as OPD/IPD patients in government and private drug de-addiction centres of the state in financial year 2024-25 stood at 52,207, up from 50,429 in 2023-24 and 45,065 in 2022-23.