CHANDIGARH: Former Haryana DGP OP Singh has been appointed chief executive officer (CEO) of SANKALP Society, a new state anti-drug body focused on reducing substance abuse among young people and creating drug-free villages and wards.
The SANKALP Society (Substance Abuse and Narcotics Knowledge, Awareness and Liberation Programme), constituted through a notification published in the Haryana Government Gazette on Monday, will bring the police, health, education, social justice and village institutions under a coordinated anti-drug programme. Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini will chair the society.
The body will work towards reducing first-time drug cases among young people, expanding prevention and treatment services, and declaring and sustaining “SANKALP-certified Nasha Mukt Villages and Wards”.
Singh, a retired DGP, will serve as CEO for up to three years. The Chief Principal Secretary or Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister will be the vice-chairperson. Administrative secretaries of the Home, Health and Family Welfare, School Education, Higher Education, Social Justice and Empowerment, Women and Child Development, Urban Local Bodies, Development and Panchayats, and Law and Legislative departments will be ex-officio members.
Haryana registered 3,738 FIRs under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in 2025 and arrested 6,801 people.
The notification defines young persons as those aged 10 to 35 and identifies protecting young people, future generations and vulnerable groups from substance abuse as a key objective. SANKALP will seek to reduce both the demand for and supply of narcotics through coordinated government and community action.
The society will promote anti-drug awareness in villages, wards, schools, colleges and workplaces, involving youth clubs, local influencers, religious leaders, resident welfare associations and other grassroots institutions. Schools and colleges will include drug awareness, refusal skills and mental-health education in their curricula.
For its first year, SANKALP has three priority deliverables: reducing first-time NDPS registrations among people below 25 against the 2025-26 baseline; creating operational de-addiction and counselling capacity across the state; and certifying gram panchayats and urban local bodies as SANKALP-certified Nasha Mukt Villages and Wards.
The performance of these priorities will be the first item of business at every meeting of the society and its executive committee and will form the first section of the annual performance report.
Panchayats and urban local bodies will receive toolkits, technical support and competitive incentives to earn drug-free certification. District Narcotics Coordination Centre (NCORD) committees, headed by deputy commissioners, will submit monthly reports to a state dashboard, while the state NCORD committee, headed by the chief secretary, will review SANKALP’s progress at every meeting.
The society will have a dedicated fund that can draw on the state budget, CSR contributions and central grants. It will also have a data and analytics unit to develop a “State Narcotics Risk Index”.