NCB Report: Myanmar Overtakes Afghanistan as Key Opium Source, Hitting India's East

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), in its 2026 annual report released on 26 June 2026, said that Myanmar has overtaken Afghanistan as a key source of global opium supply, with visible consequences along India's eastern border. After the Taliban imposed a drug ban in Afghanistan in 2022, production shifted, and Myanmar's illicit opium cultivation expanded by about 56% between 2021 and 2023, reaching 45,200 hectares.

The northeastern states of Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland are facing the sharpest exposure. Porous border arrangements, including the Free Movement Regime (FMR) along the India–Myanmar border, have turned these states from transit zones into active staging grounds for narcotics entering the Indian hinterland. The Manipur corridor, through which National Highway 102 passes, is the main land entry point for both heroin and methamphetamine (Yaba) tablets from Myanmar's Golden Triangle.

A second major trafficking route enters through Champhai in Mizoram, near Myanmar's Chin State, with drugs moving towards Silchar in Assam's Barak Valley. In 2025, Mizoram accounted for 1,477 kg of seized amphetamine-type stimulants out of 3,485 kg seized nationally, followed by Manipur, Delhi, Gujarat and Karnataka.

For aspirants, the key terms are the Golden Triangle (Myanmar–Laos–Thailand), the Golden Crescent (Afghanistan–Iran–Pakistan), the Free Movement Regime, and the role of the NCB in drug-law enforcement.