Shah to inaugurate national conference of ANTFs
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will open the third National Conference of the Heads of Anti-Narcotics Task Forces (ANTFs) in New Delhi on Tuesday. The two-day event, arranged by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), will bring together the chiefs of ANTFs from all 36 States and Union Territories. Shah is expected to launch anti-drug television advertisements, lay the foundation stones for new NCB regional complexes in Lucknow and Dehradun, present an award to the most successful ANTF, and launch a renewed NCB website.
The conference theme, ‘United Resolve, Shared Responsibility’, is based on the Vision Document for Narcotics Control (2026–29). This plan is built upon four pillars: enforcement, intelligence and operations; control of precursor and synthetic drugs; demand and harm reduction; and capacity building and coordination. The technical sessions will address cartel networks, rehabilitation, clandestine laboratories, illicit cultivation, and investigations into the Darknet and Cryptocurrency.
The Government’s primary evidence of progress comes from seizure and case data. In 2025, the various agencies recorded 1,48,063 trafficking cases and made 1,83,675 arrests, compared with 96,930 cases and 1,22,224 arrests in 2024. They seized 1,240.9 tonnes of drugs worth approximately `18,227 crore; ganja made up the largest portion of this, amounting to 628.19 tonnes, an increase from 533.9 tonnes the year before. Hashish decreased to 5.11 tonnes from 6.48 tonnes the previous year.
The total weight of heroin seized was 3,567 kg, of which Punjab accounted for 2,085.55 kg, or 58 per cent of the national total. Cocaine seizures amounted to 226 kg, with Maharashtra leading the way at 108.06 kg and Delhi at 55.49 kg. From 2021 to 2025, the total amount seized was over 6,800 tonnes, valued at about Rs 1.08 lakh crore. Annual figures were 1,609.6 tonnes in 2021, 1,253.6 tonnes in 2022, 1,389.7 tonnes in 2023, 1,330.6 tonnes in 2024, and 1,240.9 tonnes in 2025.
The NCB said that in 2025 it seized about 1.33 lakh kg of narcotics valued at nearly `2,000 crore, made 994 arrests, destroyed 77,773 kg of narcotics, and achieved a conviction rate of about 67 per cent. New routes have been developed. The number of cases relating to drones increased from three incidents and 10 kg in 2021 to 305 incidents and 468 kg in 2025; Punjab accounted for 298 of those 305 drops. Thirty clandestine synthetic-drug laboratories were closed down in 2025. There were 1,356 financial investigations, as a result of which assets worth `836 crore were frozen or seized.
The State of Punjab also had 8,95,508 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup seized. In 2025, the amount of illegal poppy destroyed reached 42,282 acres, up from 22,512 acres in 2024 and about 10,000 acres in 2020. A separate drug disposal drive, which was launched in June 2026, focused on the destruction of 2,09,500 kg of seized drugs with a value exceeding Rs 6,000 crore. These same figures show certain limitations, since the total tonnage and value of drugs seized decreased in 2025 even though the number of cases and arrests went up, a situation consistent with smaller, more scattered consignments.
Demand is still high: official estimates suggest that the number of people using opioids is around 2.1 per cent, that is about 22.6 million, and cannabis use is even higher. A survey carried out by AIIMS among school students in ten cities found that the rate of substance use over their lifetime was about 15 per cent, with the average age of first use being near 13.
The ANTFs were set up as a result of a directive issued in 2021, and it will be up to making them full-time and well-equipped units to combine interdiction with credible treatment, whether or not the roadmap for the period 2026 to 2029 alters the availability and use of drugs, not just the size of the following seizure table.
