The Chief Minister's Office of Punjab announced on Monday, 13 July 2026 that 1,708 Block Coordinators are actively working across the state alongside more than 1.25 lakh Village Protection Committee members to combat drug abuse, promote rehabilitation, and strengthen community vigilance against drug trafficking — all under the direct directions of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann.

Context

The official post, shared in both Punjabi and English, states that the network of coordinators and village-level members is ਜਾਗਰੂਕਤਾ ਫ਼ੈਲਾਉਣ (raising awareness), promoting treatment and rehabilitation, and building community-level vigilance against trafficking. The scale — over 1.25 lakh grassroots members — signals a deliberate push to embed anti-drug work at the village level rather than relying solely on police enforcement.

Punjab, which shares a long international border with Pakistan, has recorded high rates of opiate and synthetic drug use for more than two decades, making anti-narcotics governance a perennial political and public-health priority in the state.

Policy Backdrop

When the Aam Aadmi Party came to power in March 2022, one of its first governance orders was to constitute village-level anti-drug committees and appoint block coordinators as the backbone of a declared 'war on drugs.' The move built on earlier de-addiction infrastructure expanded between 2017 and 2021, but shifted the emphasis from centralised de-addiction centres toward decentralised community mobilisation.

Village Protection Committees are community-level bodies tasked with monitoring drug abuse, supporting families seeking rehabilitation, and reporting trafficking activity to authorities. Placing 1,708 Block Coordinators above them creates a two-tier grassroots architecture that links village-level intelligence to block-level administration.

Stakeholders and Impact

The primary beneficiaries are rural youth and families affected by addiction — demographics that have borne the heaviest social cost of Punjab's drug crisis. Village Protection Committee members serve as trusted local interlocutors, which policy practitioners argue lowers the stigma barrier for families seeking treatment.

Community-committee models similar to Punjab's have been adopted in other border and transit states facing synthetic-drug proliferation, suggesting the approach is gaining traction as a complement to law-enforcement crackdowns. The dual mandate — awareness and rehabilitation alongside vigilance against trafficking — attempts to address both demand reduction and supply disruption simultaneously.

What's Next

Observers will watch for the rollout of additional rehabilitation beds and any amendments to the Punjab Village Protection Committees rules in the next legislative session. The effectiveness of the block-coordinator network will likely be assessed through treatment uptake figures and trafficking-report data in the months ahead.

If the community-mobilisation layer demonstrates measurable results, the Mann government is expected to deepen investment in the model — potentially expanding coordinator headcount and integrating digital reporting tools to accelerate ground-level response.