Chandigarh:
Amid a renewed political storm over Punjab’s drug problem, the Bhagwant Mann government is doubling down on a strategy that goes beyond arrests and seizures: Putting the state’s youth on the sporting field. The government has announced the fourth edition of “Khedan Wattan Punjab Diyan”, positioning sports as a key weapon in its fight against drugs and an avenue to channel the energy of Punjab’s young population.
The timing is significant. The government and Punjab Police have repeatedly highlighted the scale of their enforcement drive, with the anti-drug campaign claiming 75,102 drug smugglers arrested in 54,916 FIRs and 3,472 kg of heroin seized between March 2025 and August 1, 2026.
The police have also reported seizures of 871 kg of opium, 425 quintals of poppy husk, 86 kg of charas, 1,193 kg of ganja, 60 kg of ICE and more than 60 lakh intoxicant tablets.
Yet the scale of those numbers has not ended the political argument over whether enforcement is translating into change on the ground.
Videos purportedly showing people hooked onto drugs have repeatedly triggered public outrage and opposition attacks, putting the government on the defensive. The controversy over such videos has become part of a larger political battle. While in several cases, the government and police have disputed the authenticity of such footage, the videos continue to generate strong public reaction.
It is against this backdrop that Mann is presenting sports as the constructive side of the government’s anti-drug strategy.
Announcing the fourth edition of “Khedan Wattan Punjab Diyan”, the Chief Minister said the event would involve more than 10 lakh participants — from 14-year-olds to those above 70, across 38 sports disciplines and four para-sports. The games will begin in Bathinda on September 5 and conclude in Patiala on November 29.
Mann has explicitly linked the sporting push with the anti-drug battle.
His argument is straightforward: Keeping young people engaged in sport can provide an alternative to addiction. The government plans to identify talent from villages, towns and cities and prepare promising athletes for national and international competitions.
Competitions will be held across all 153 blocks and 23 districts of the state. Medal winners up to the age of 40 will receive gradation certificates that can help them avail benefits under the sports quota in government jobs.
The scale of the programme is also being used to showcase the government’s larger sports policy.
Mann said Rs 1,794 crore has been allocated for sports, alongside the development of thousands of rural playgrounds and gyms.
The government has also increased financial incentives, with state-level “Khedan Wattan Punjab Diyan” winners set to receive Rs10,000 for gold, Rs7,000 for silver and Rs5,000 for bronze. A QR code-based registration system has also been introduced to make participation easier.
But the political question is whether sports can succeed where enforcement alone has struggled to convince critics. The government’s own data presents an aggressive crackdown, with police claiming large scale arrests and significant drug seizures. At the same time, the continued visibility of drug use, recurring seizures and political battles over videos suggest that the crisis cannot be addressed simply by counting arrests.
For Mann, therefore, “Khedan Wattan Punjab Diyan” serves two purposes at once. It is a sports programme aimed at creating the next generation of athletes, and it is also being presented as a social intervention against addiction.
The government is effectively arguing that the war on drugs cannot be won only by putting peddlers behind bars. It also requires giving young people something to aspire to.
That makes the fourth edition more politically consequential than a routine sporting carnival. With the drug issue emerging as one of the biggest vulnerabilities for the government ahead of the 2027 elections, Mann is now trying to shift the narrative from how many peddlers have been arrested to how many young people can be kept away from drugs. Whether the playgrounds can produce that change will be the real test of the policy.
