CHANDIGARH: Former Haryana DGP O P Singh has been appointed chief executive officer (CEO) of the SANKALP Society (Substance Abuse and Narcotics Knowledge, Awareness and Liberation Programme), a new state-level body chaired by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and focused on preventing substance abuse among young people.
The society brings together the state’s police, health, education, social justice and village institutions under a coordinated anti-drug programme. It will also work towards declaring and sustaining “SANKALP-certified Nasha Mukt Villages and Wards”, with gram panchayats, urban local bodies and district administrations playing a key role.
The SANKALP Society was constituted to reduce first-time drug cases among young people and promote drug-free villages, through a notification published in the Haryana Government Gazette on Monday. The initiative builds on the state’s enforcement efforts by adding prevention, treatment and community action.
The Chief Minister will be the chairperson of the society, while the Chief Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister or the Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister will serve as vice-chairperson. Singh, a retired DGP, will serve as CEO for a term of up to three years, according to the notification.
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 a record 3,738 FIRs under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in 2025, with 6,801 people arrested.
The notification defines young persons as those aged 10 to 35 and identifies the protection of young people, future generations and vulnerable groups from substance abuse as one of SANKALP’s key objectives. It seeks to reduce both the demand for and supply of narcotics through a coordinated government and community-led approach.
The society will promote anti-drug awareness at village, ward, school, college and workplace levels, involving youth clubs, local influencers, religious leaders, resident welfare associations and other grassroots institutions.
For its first year, the society has been assigned three priority deliverables: reducing first-time NDPS registrations among those below 25 against the fixed 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.
These priorities will be monitored as key performance indicators. Their progress will be the first item of business at every meeting of the society and its executive committee and will form the first section of its annual performance report.
The order calls for a “citizen-led movement”, with leadership at the village, ward, school, college and workplace levels. Schools and colleges will incorporate drug awareness, refusal skills and mental-health education into their curricula.
Panchayats and urban local bodies will receive toolkits, technical support and competitive incentives to obtain drug-free certification. District NCORD (Narcotics Coordination Centre) committees, headed by deputy commissioners, will submit monthly reports to a state dashboard.
The state NCORD committee, headed by the chief secretary, will review SANKALP’s progress at every meeting. The society will have a dedicated fund drawing on the state budget, CSR contributions and central grants, as well as a data and analytics unit tasked with developing a “State Narcotics Risk Index”.