Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu announced on Monday, 15 June 2026 that the state government's mass people's movement against chitta — a street name for heroin-based synthetic drugs — has successfully completed its first phase and is now entering a second, school-focused phase. The campaign, framed as a jan-andolan (people's movement), has drawn broad public support across the state, according to Sukhu.

In his post, the Chief Minister wrote: 'हमारी सरकार ने चिट्टा के खिलाफ पूरे प्रदेश में जन-आंदोलन शुरू किया है' ('Our government has launched a people's movement against chitta across the entire state'). He added that newly elected panchayat heads and deputy heads have been inducted into the campaign and administered a pledge for a 'Chitta-Mukt Himachal' — a chitta-free Himachal Pradesh.

Context

Himachal Pradesh has faced a documented and worsening narcotics challenge, particularly in tourist corridors and districts bordering Punjab. Chitta, a cheap and potent synthetic opioid, has penetrated rural and semi-urban youth populations, making it a central political and public-health concern for the state administration. Chief Minister Sukhu, who took office in December 2022, has repeatedly cited drug abuse as among the most urgent governance priorities of his Indian National Congress government.

Policy Backdrop

The state campaign draws on the architecture of the central government's Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan, launched in August 2020 by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, which initially covered 272 high-prevalence districts and included school and college outreach as a core component. Himachal Pradesh's phased approach — beginning with community mobilisation and panchayat pledges before moving into educational institutions — mirrors models adopted in Punjab and Haryana, where similar sequencing was used to build administrative momentum before targeting students directly.

The involvement of Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police in Phase 2 signals an elevation of the campaign's institutional weight, moving beyond awareness rallies to structured outreach within the formal education system.

Stakeholders and Impact

The most immediate beneficiaries of Phase 2 are students in Himachal Pradesh's schools and colleges, who will receive direct sensitisation sessions from senior district officials — an unusual deployment of administrative rank for a preventive health drive. Newly elected panchayat pradhan and up-pradhan (heads and deputy heads of village councils) have been formally co-opted into the movement, extending the campaign's reach into gram panchayat governance structures across the state.

This panchayat-level integration is significant: it creates a peer-accountability layer at the grassroots, where elected local leaders are now publicly committed to the 'Chitta-Mukt Himachal' pledge, giving the campaign a political and social durability beyond departmental enforcement cycles.

What's Next

The rollout of awareness sessions by Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police in educational institutions across Himachal Pradesh will be the key operational test of Phase 2. Observers will watch whether formal reporting mechanisms are established to track school coverage, panchayat participation rates, and any measurable change in drug-related incidents at the district level. If the phased model proves effective, it could serve as a template for other hill states grappling with synthetic drug penetration in remote communities.