In declaring an all-out war with a “collective ruthless approach” against the worrying rise in drugs and narcotic substances across the country, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has drawn the nation’s attention to an issue that tends to fly below the radar. | file Pic
In declaring an all-out war with a “collective ruthless approach” against the worrying rise in drugs and narcotic substances across the country, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has drawn the nation’s attention to an issue that tends to fly below the radar. Recommending a “top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top” investigation and action, Shah tasked the union government to prepare a roadmap up to 2029-2030 with a time-bound review mechanism for its implementation and directed DGPs in all states to take concrete steps to destroy the networks of drugs and narcotic substances in their territories.
The urgency on addressing India’s silent killer, especially of the young, could not have come a day too soon. The government’s statistics show that while the drugs seized from 2004 to 2013 weighed 26 lakh kg and were worth Rs 40,000 crore in the international market, there was an 11-fold increase between 2014 and 2025, with 1.11 lakh kg worth Rs 1.71 lakh crore of substances seized. As it happens, states in northern India, especially Punjab and Haryana, have been more beset by the menace than their counterparts in the south. This points to the need for a granular and culturally-grounded approach rather than a one-size-fits-all strategy driven by the Union government alone; the role of state governments and their DGPs, as mentioned by Shah, will prove to be critical in this fight.
The digitalisation has presented new challenges too—from access and sale of substances on the dark web to the use of crypto currencies. These have added to the beleaguered aspects of the drugs network in India, chiefly its use for terrorism-related activities or narco-terrorism and for illegally moving currencies or the infamous hawala webs. Shah’s statement that no compassion should be shown to the manufacturers, importers, and sellers of narcotics is a signal to the police forces across the country to initiate hard crackdowns on the drug networks and cartels in their jurisdictions. How far they can succeed will depend not only on policing methods but equally on the alleged compromises between elements in the police force and the drug cartels. The Union Home Ministry would have to keep a watchful eye on this aspect.
Its role will remain critical also because the Union home secretary heads the Narco Coordination Centre, or NCORD, established in 2016, which works closely with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). State-level centres are headed by chief secretaries of states. The crackdown and prosecution in the past cases often fell through for a lack of coordination between states, but the NCORD was supposed to fill that gap. Despite its presence for almost a decade, if the volume of sale and use of narcotics increased 11-fold, it is more than disquieting for India, as it threatens the health and productivity of India’s youth.
