Nasha Mukt Abhiyaan: From Campaign to Cultural Imperative

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10 Apr 2026

The LG has given the system both the mandate and the room to fight drug addiction

Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha's decision to chair a high-level review of the 100-day intensive campaign under the Nasha Mukt Jammu Kashmir Abhiyaan is not merely an administrative formality; it is a signal. And signals from Raj Bhavan, when backed by institutional will, have a way of becoming policy.

That institutional will has been visible since 2019. From the moment the administration began dismantling the ecosystem that had quietly allowed narcotics to flow through J&K's arteries across mountain passes, through courier networks, into school bags and village lanes, it was clear that this was not a seasonal crackdown. It was a structural reckoning. The years since have seen record seizures, coordinated inter-agency operations, and a law enforcement apparatus finally given the freedom to act without looking over its shoulder. Credit for that freedom belongs, in no small measure, to the LG and the political resolve his office has consistently demonstrated.

Because this fight was never only about drugs. It is about narco-terrorism, the deliberate weaponisation of addiction as a tool of destabilisation. The pipeline that carries heroin into Sopore, Srinagar, Budgam and Anantnag neighbourhoods and the pipeline that finances cross-border violence are, in many cases, the same pipeline. To choke one is to weaken the other. J&K's security forces, the NCB, and the police have understood this. The Abhiyaan formalises what they have been practising on the ground for years.

And yet campaigns, however well-designed, are mortal. Drugs are not. They do not respect review calendars. They erode families, futures, and the social fabric of a generation already strained by decades of conflict and transition. The UT's youth unemployment sits at 17.4 percent, with 3.70 lakh registered jobless and despair, as every sociologist and every beat constable will confirm, is the best recruiter addiction has ever had.

The 100-day push must therefore graduate into permanent architecture. Mandatory drug education from Class 6. De-addiction centres in every district hospital. A dedicated NCB outpost with robust interstate coordination. And above all, an employment ecosystem substantial enough to make sobriety feel like an opportunity rather than an obligation.

The LG has given the system both the mandate and the room to fight. The system must now build something that outlasts the campaign, not just in the files, but in the mohallas.