Anti-Chitta Volunteer Scheme (ACVS), Himachal Pradesh

What is the Anti-Chitta Volunteer Scheme?

Anti-Chitta Volunteer Scheme (ACVS) is a Himachal Pradesh Police initiative that enrols civilian volunteers to support the state's campaign against chitta, the local name for the smokable synthetic heroin that has spread rapidly through Himachal's towns and college campuses over the last decade.

According to the Himachal Pradesh government's press release No. 1106/2025 dated 25 September 2025, the scheme follows an announcement made by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu at the Independence Day function at Sarkaghat in Mandi district, and the Police Headquarters has submitted a detailed proposal to the government for implementation.

The scale announced is more than 1,000 volunteers across the state. The stated purpose is to build a structured partnership between the police, the public and other stakeholders, so that community-level effort supplements police enforcement rather than duplicating it.

This is a volunteer engagement scheme, not a citizen benefit scheme. Nobody receives a pension, subsidy or grant under it. What a volunteer receives is an honorarium and training in exchange for time and community work.

What do Anti-Chitta Volunteers actually do?

The government's announcement sets out five functions:

• Spread awareness about the harmful effects of chitta and other narcotics.
• Report suspicious activity, hotspots and offenders to the police through confidential channels.
• Take part in awareness activity in schools, colleges and communities, including rallies, street plays and outreach programmes.
• Support anti-drug messaging on social media.
• Link drug-affected individuals and families to counselling and rehabilitation centres.

Equally important is what volunteers do not do. The government has stated that volunteers will not be engaged in field identification of offenders. Enforcement, raids, arrests and NDPS Act prosecutions stay entirely with the police. A volunteer who is asked to physically identify or confront a peddler is being asked to do something outside the scheme's design.

Who can become an Anti-Chitta Volunteer?

You can volunteer if you are:

• A college or university student in Himachal Pradesh.
• An NCC cadet or NSS volunteer at a school, college or university in the state.
• A member of a youth club or a registered community organisation.
• A socially conscious citizen of the state willing to do community outreach and to attend the two-day training.

You cannot join, or should not expect to, if:

• You are looking for a job or a regular salary. ACVS is a voluntary engagement with an honorarium, not employment with the Himachal Pradesh Police, and it confers no police powers, no uniform entitlement and no claim to a government post.
• You are not resident in Himachal Pradesh, since volunteers are enrolled by the district police for work in their own area.
• You expect enforcement powers. Volunteers cannot search, detain, question or arrest anyone, and doing so would be an offence regardless of enrolment.
• You have an adverse police record in a narcotics or serious criminal case, which police verification at the enrolment stage would be expected to surface.

The government announcement does not publish a minimum age, an educational qualification or a residence period requirement. Those details, if fixed, will sit in the scheme guidelines issued by the Police Headquarters, so confirm them with your district police before assuming eligibility.

How to enrol as an Anti-Chitta Volunteer

1. Contact the district police. Approach the Superintendent of Police's office in your district, or your nearest police station, and ask for the nodal officer for the Anti-Chitta Volunteer Scheme. Enrolment is being run through the district police units rather than through a central portal.
2. Go through your institution if you are a student. College principals, NSS programme officers and NCC unit officers are the routes the state has named for enrolling students and cadets, and a group enrolment through the institution is usually faster than an individual approach.
3. Submit your identity and residence details for police verification, Aadhaar or another photo identity, proof of residence in the district, and your institution identity card if you are a student.
4. Attend the two-day training programme conducted by the police, covering the basics of the NDPS Act, police procedures and methods of community engagement.
5. Confirm the honorarium and how it is paid. Ask the nodal officer for the sanctioned rate, the payment cycle and whether bank account details are needed, since the government announcement confirms an honorarium is payable without stating the amount.
6. Begin outreach work in your area, school and college sessions, community meetings, rallies and social media messaging, and use the confidential channel given to you by the police for any information you come across.

What training do volunteers get?

Volunteers undergo a two-day structured training programme covering three areas:

• Basics of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 — what is an offence, what the punishments are, and the difference between small quantity, intermediate quantity and commercial quantity, which determines the severity of a case.
• Police procedures: how information is received and acted on, what a volunteer's information can and cannot be used for, and what safeguards exist around informants.
• Community engagement methods, how to run an awareness session in a school or a panchayat, how to speak to a family whose member is using, and how to refer someone to a de-addiction facility.

The training is deliberately short. The state is not building a parallel force; it is trying to make a large number of ordinary citizens competent to talk about the problem accurately and to route information safely.

How are volunteers protected?

Two safeguards have been announced:

• Strict confidentiality of the volunteer's identity. Information passes through confidential channels rather than through named complaints, so a volunteer's name does not surface in the ordinary course.
• Police protection in sensitive cases, where a volunteer's involvement creates risk.

The exclusion from field identification work is itself the primary safeguard. A volunteer who never has to point out a peddler in person is far less exposed than one who does.

What else is Himachal Pradesh doing against chitta?

ACVS sits inside a broader state campaign. The Himachal Pradesh Assembly has adopted a resolution seeking that offences relating to chitta abuse be made non-bailable. The state has released Rs 20 crore for a de-addiction and rehabilitation centre being developed at Kotla Barog in Sirmaur district, and police have reported attachment and seizure of property worth over Rs 42 crore linked to drug networks. A statewide anti-chitta drive with walkathons and public pledges has been run from Shimla.

For a volunteer, the practical significance of this is the referral end of the job. Awareness work produces families who come forward and ask where their son or daughter can be treated, and knowing the nearest functioning de-addiction facility is as much a part of the role as awareness itself.

Where to get help

• District Superintendent of Police's office in your district, the enrolment and coordination point for the scheme.
• Himachal Pradesh Police, hppolice.gov.in, for district contact numbers and official notifications.
• Police emergency number 112.
• NSS programme officer or NCC unit officer at your college, for student enrolment.

A note on what is confirmed and what is not

The Anti-Chitta Volunteer Scheme was announced by the Himachal Pradesh government in September 2025, with the Police Headquarters proposal sent to the government for approval. As of this page's fact-check date, the state government has published the scheme's purpose, the target of over 1,000 volunteers, the categories of people to be enrolled, the duties, the two-day training and the fact that an honorarium is payable.

It has not published the honorarium rate, a minimum age, the tenure of a volunteer's engagement, the district-wise allocation of the 1,000 volunteer positions, a reward structure for actionable information, or a dedicated registration portal. Anyone quoting a specific honorarium figure for ACVS is going beyond what the state government has released. Confirm those details with your district police before enrolling.