Examine the role of community volunteerism (e.g., Nasha Mukti Mitr) in the success of public health campaigns like NMBA.

Launched on 15 August 2020 in 272 vulnerable districts and extended nationwide in August 2023, the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan (NMBA) rests on a demand-reduction approach [3]. Since awareness and rehabilitation cannot be policed into being, community volunteers — the Nasha Mukti Mitr — form its delivery backbone.

How volunteerism drives the campaign

• Scale at low cost: over 28,000 registered Nasha Mukti Mitr carry outreach into wards and campuses, helping NMBA sensitise over 29 crore citizens, including more than 11 crore youth and about 8 crore women [1][4].
• Trust and early detection: volunteers are local, so they identify at-risk users, counsel families, and route cases to de-addiction centres and the 14446 helpline — access an official often cannot secure [1].
• Behavioural change, not enforcement: MoUs with spiritual bodies like the Brahma Kumaris embed anti-drug messaging in existing social networks, shifting stigma toward treatment-seeking [5].
• Institutional anchoring: the NMBA 2.0 App lets Mitr enrol, report activity and be tracked in real time across Centre-State-district tiers, converting scattered goodwill into auditable work [2].

Limits that dilute the role

• Uneven quality: volunteers lack clinical training; awareness rarely converts into sustained rehabilitation and aftercare.
• Motivation risk: recognition through certificates and badges [1] may not sustain effort where drug economies are entrenched, as in border States.
• Coverage skew: participation concentrates in institutions with active leadership, leaving remote and slum pockets thin.
• Supply-side gap: demand reduction stalls unless matched by NDPS enforcement by the Narcotics Control Bureau.

Volunteerism thus gives NMBA reach, legitimacy and cultural traction that administrative machinery alone cannot achieve, while professional treatment capacity determines whether that reach yields recovery. Institutionalising volunteer training, linking each Mitr to a de-addiction centre, and using App 2.0 data for outcome-based monitoring would convert numbers into results — advancing SDG 3.5 on substance-abuse treatment and the Article 47 duty to improve public health.