CM Nayab Saini Urges Families: Don't Abandon Drug-Affected Children
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
When a child falls into the grip of addiction, the instinct to distance — to protect the family's reputation, to step back from the shame — can be the most dangerous response of all. Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini of Haryana pushed back hard against that instinct on Sunday, 2 August 2026, delivering a pointed message to families across the state: stay close, not distant.
Posting under the hashtags #NashaMuktYuva4ViksitBharat and #NashaMuktYuva, CM Saini said plainly: 'Agar koi baccha nashe ki giraft mein aa jaata hai, toh usse doori na banayen' — 'If a child gets caught in the grip of addiction, do not distance yourself from them.' The message targets a deeply rooted social reflex that often leaves young addicts more isolated and harder to reach.
De-stigmatisation at the Centre of Haryana's Anti-Drug Push
The appeal sits within the national Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, launched in 2020 by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to address substance abuse through awareness, community engagement, and rehabilitation. Haryana has periodically aligned its own messaging with this framework, consistently emphasising community support and de-stigmatisation over punishment or exclusion.
The distinction matters. Isolation doesn't just wound — it cuts off the family channels that most frequently bring young people into treatment. A child shunned at home has fewer paths back.
Youth, Families, and the Viksit Bharat Link
The hashtag #NashaMuktYuva4ViksitBharat explicitly ties the anti-drug campaign to the Viksit Bharat 2047 vision — the government's long-horizon goal of a developed India by the centenary of independence. The framing is deliberate: a generation lost to addiction is a generation subtracted from that ambition. CM Saini, who took office in March 2024, has made youth welfare a recurring theme of his administration's public communications.
The real test will come in budget allocations — whether de-addiction centres in Haryana receive the funding to match the message, and whether state programmes integrate meaningfully with central rehabilitation infrastructure.