"Drug abuse in India calls for a balance between supply suppression and demand reduction." Evaluate the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan in this light.

India fights drugs in two ways. The NCB and State ANTFs cut supply under the NDPS Act, 1985. MoSJE works to cut demand. Its main tool is the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan (NMBA), launched on 15 August 2020 under NAPDDR [1]. NMBA has reached a very large number of people, but it has not yet shown that drug use is falling.

How NMBA complements supply suppression

• Linked helplines: MHA's MANAS (1933) collects tips on drug trafficking and passes calls seeking counselling to MoSJE's 14446 [2]. Enforcement and care are joined at the first point of contact.
• 2029 target: the drug trade is to be uprooted by 31 December 2029 [1]. Without falling demand, seizures only push traffickers onto new routes.

Strengths

• Scale: NMBA grew from 272 districts to all districts. It has reached 35+ crore people, including 13.94 crore youth and 10.86 crore women, through 32 lakh+ institutions [1].
• Peer outreach: Nashamukt Mitras (peer volunteers) take the message into schools and colleges [1].
• Less stigma: it treats addiction as a health problem that calls for compassion [1].
• Treatment capacity: the government supports 344 IRCAs, 145 District De-Addiction Centres and 155 Addiction Treatment Facilities [3].

Limitations

• Reach is not treatment: only about 6.5 lakh people used supported centres in 2024-25 [4]. India has an estimated 2.26 crore opioid users [5].
• Old baseline: the only national survey is from 2018 [6]. Outreach figures count activity, not falling use.
• Conflicting legal message: Section 27 makes drug use a crime. Section 64A protects addicts who seek treatment, but the protection can be withdrawn if treatment is not completed [7]. Fear of arrest keeps people from asking for help. The Standing Committee on Finance (2011-12) kept Section 27 as a deterrent [8], but a deterrent only helps where treatment is available.
• Thin network: there is roughly one District De-Addiction Centre for every five districts [3].

Way forward

• Repeat the AIIMS national survey to set a new baseline [6].
• Replace NAPDDR with a plan that tracks treatment completion, relapse and new young users.
• Expand treatment places in step with outreach in each district.
• Make Section 64A protection harder to lose after a relapse.
• Combine 14446, 1933 and Tele MANAS into one helpline [4].

Verdict: NMBA has given demand reduction a place beside enforcement, and its reach is a real achievement. The balance is not yet complete. The focus now needs to move from awareness to treatment, and from punishing users to caring for them. Doing so would help meet the 2029 goal, advance Article 47 and SDG target 3.5, and protect the youth needed for Viksit Bharat @2047.