Hans News Service Chandigarh

FormerHaryana DGP O P Singh has been appointed chief executive officer of Sankalp, a new body chaired by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini that brings the state’s police, health, education, social justice and village institutions under one anti-drug plan.

The SANKALP Society (Substance Abuse and Narcotics Knowledge, Awareness and Liberation Programme) was constituted to reduce first-time drug cases among young people and create drug-free villages, through a notification published in the Haryana Government Gazette on Monday.

Building on the state’s strongest enforcement year so far, the new body adds prevention, treatment and community action to that enforcement effort.

Haryana registered a record 3,738 FIRs under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in 2025 and arrested 6,801 people. According to the notification, Sankalp, whose chairperson will be the chief minister, will coordinate 11 departments, including Home, Health, School and Higher Education, and Sports and Youth Affairs.

The administrative secretaries of these departments sit on the Society. Additional DGP, Haryana State Narcotics Control Bureau (HSNCB), is its member secretary. The society’s first-year priorities are set out in the notification: decline in first-time NDPS registrations among persons under 25 years of age per lakh population in identified districts against a fixed 2025-26 baseline; de-addiction; certification of villages and urban wards as “SANKALP-Certified Nasha Mukt”.

Progress on these goals will be the first item at every meeting of the society and will be included in its annual report to the Council of Ministers.

The order calls for a “citizen-led movement” with leadership at the village, ward, school, college and workplace levels, involving youth clubs, local influencers, religious leaders and resident welfare bodies.

Schools and colleges will add drug awareness, refusal skills and mental-health education to their curricula, the notification says. Panchayats and urban local bodies will receive toolkits, technical support and competitive incentives to earn drug-free certification.

District NCORD committees, headed by deputy commissioners, will send monthly reports to a state dashboard.