There is a scene that often repeats itself, in almost every college hostel, every office party, every group of friends growing up. Some substances get passed around. A voice, casual but insistent says, everyone else is doing it. Saying no can feel like stepping out of the group. A pause follows, the kind where a young person quickly weighs the embarrassment of saying NO to a peer group against the discomfort of being singled out. That is the make or break moment, because addiction does not always happen with a conscious decision, it often starts due to the fear of being left out.
NO To Drugs, YES To Life
This is the quiet but critical moment that the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan (NMBA) was conceived to influence. Its larger purpose has been to build awareness around substance abuse, but its deeper challenge is social: to make a drug-free choice easier to make, easier to express and eventually, easier to see as normal.
STEELY Resolve
When the campaign was launched on 15 August 2020 by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, NMBA chose to fight for something more challenging, the courage of a single person, in a weak moment, to say NO in front of a peer group. That is why the most powerful word in the campaign may be the simplest one, ‘No!’ Not a dramatic ‘No!’. Not a moral lecture. Just the confidence to decline when everyone around you appears to be saying ‘YES’.
Hon’ble PM has said, “For the Viksit Bharat Sankalp Abhiyan, the name Nasha Mukt Yuva itself makes the resolve clear. As India sets the goal of becoming a developed nation, it is essential that our youth remain healthy in body and mind, full of confidence, and always free from the deadly habit of drugs. This is the purpose of the campaign. We must all resolve that our youth understand the dangers of addiction, remain aware, and stay away from it. The National Nasha Mukt Yuva Abhiyan now plays a major role in this resolve.”
NMBA: A Nationwide Movement of Shared Responsibility
Six years on, that individual act has become part of something much larger. The campaign has reached more than 13.71 crore young people through pledges and mobilisation, while more than 31 lakh awareness activities have been conducted across schools, colleges and communities. It has become voluntarily common on campuses for students to make pledges, a gram Sabha now taking the topic as routine business. Where families once accepted a member’s addiction in private shame, more than 10.65 crore women, through Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and community networks, have begun speaking about it openly, in their own language, to their own neighbours.
More than 1.70 lakh Nasha Mukti Mitras (NMM) have emerged as community-level champions, helping carry the message to over 34.57 crore people, as on September 19, 2026. And, the trend is skyward in the positive direction.
This is where a public campaign begins to change social behaviour. NMBA has steadily moved beyond one-way awareness to create multiple avenues through which people can engage with the campaign, seek information and carry its message forward.
The NMBA portal brings together information, educational resources, best practices and opportunities for citizens to engage with the Abhiyaan.
https://www.dosje.gov.in/organisation/nasha-mukt-bharat-abhiyaan
Drug-Free Youth, Drug-Free India
Hon’ble Prime Minister, Sh. Narendra Modi gave voice to this larger mission recently, in the 137th episode of the monthly radio address Mann Ki Baat, when he renewed the call for its goal- drug-free youth, drug-free India. His appeal was particularly significant because it extended beyond institutions and enforcement agencies to young musicians, students and theatre groups, recognising that messages are often most powerful when they travel through voices that young people already trust.
That is, in many ways, what the last six years of NMBA have quietly built, not a wall of prohibition, but an alternative circle of belonging, one large enough now to reach every State and Union Territory, into schools, colleges, Panchayati Raj institutions, ASHA and Anganwadi networks and thousands of community organisations, each carrying the same pledge in its own words.
From Awareness To Resolve
A movement of this size does not stay confined to statistics for long; it begins to shape conversations in homes, classrooms and communities, bringing substance abuse into the open and making prevention a shared responsibility rather than a conversation reserved for moments of crisis.
But awareness is only the beginning. For someone seeking help for themselves or a loved one, the next question is where does one go to? NMBA has sought to make that step easier too.
The National De-Addiction Helpline, 14446, provides a point of contact for information, guidance and referral to appropriate de-addiction services, helping turn a moment of concern into a possible first step towards recovery.
For any person who has ever stood in that hesitant pause, weighing a friend’s insistence against their own better judgment, the journey of NMBA offers reassurance that they are not alone.
What began in 2020 has grown into a nationwide movement, bringing together young people, families, communities and institutions around a common purpose.
Together For Safeguarding Youth-The Beacon of India
Citizens now have the opportunity to carry that mission further as Nasha Mukti Mitras, taking the conversation beyond campaigns and into the places where everyday choices are shaped.
Because lasting change is rarely created by one campaign, one institution or one moment. It is sustained when awareness translates into everyday conversation, conversation becomes a collective resolve and that resolve finds its way into everyday life.
That is the potential and impact of Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan, a campaign against substance abuse where the country stands together.
Let’s Join Hands To Safeguard Youth-The Beacon Of India.
Courtesy PIB Srinagar
(Shri Sudhansh Pant, IAS, is Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice And Empowerment, Government of India)