Myanmar replaces Afghanistan as key opium source, impact seen on India’s eastern border: NCB

Following the 2022 Taliban-imposed ban on drugs in Afghanistan, Myanmar has emerged as an alternative source of global opium supply and the consequences are already visible along India’s eastern borders, through the Manipur corridor, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) said in its 2026 annual report.

The report, released on Friday (June 26, 2026) by Home Minister Amit Shah, highlighted the fact that the northeastern states of Manipur, Mizoram, and Nagaland are bearing the sharpest frontline exposure due to the enhanced production of drugs in Myanmar. Porous border mechanisms, including the Free Movement Regime (FMR) along the India-Myanmar border, have created conditions under which these States have transitioned from peripheral transit zones to active staging grounds for distribution of narcotics into the Indian hinterland.

Myanmar’s illicit opium cultivation expanded by approximately 56% between 2021 and 2023, according to the NCB report, with the area under poppy cultivation reaching 45,200 hectares. India’s eastern borders through the Manipur corridor are the most direct and porous entry point for this expanding production base, and the consequences are already visible, the report said.

Unfenced, porous border

“Myanmar’s Golden Triangle has expanded as both an opiate supplier and a dominant methamphetamine (Yaba tablets) hub. The convergence, primarily in areas controlled by ethnic armed groups in Shan State, has created a poly-drug production. The Manipur corridor, through which the Indian National Highway 102 passes, is the primary land entry point for both heroin and methamphetamine tablets,” it said.

The second major trafficking corridor enters India through Champhai in Mizoram, which shares close proximity with Myanmar’s Chin State. Drugs are smuggled through unfenced and porous stretches of the border and routed towards Silchar in Assam’s Barak Valley through Aizawl and adjoining road networks, the report added.

In 2025, Mizoram accounted for 1,477 kg of seized amphetamine-type stimulants, out of total seizures amounting to 3,485 kg across the country. The other States where such recoveries were reported are Manipur (535 kg), Delhi (454 kg), Gujarat (308 kg) and Karnataka (164 kg).

Drone-based drug trafficking

On the other side of the country, despite the Taliban’s 2022 crackdown, which reduced Afghan opium production by 93% from its peak, around 13,200 tonnes of pre-ban narcotics are sustaining the trafficking pipelines and making their way into India through the western border.

The NCB said that drone-based drug trafficking from across the Pakistan border has seen a five-fold increase over the past five years, particularly into Punjab. In 2025, there were 305 such cases, resulting in the seizure of 468 kg of narcotics, a 96% increase in quantity over 2024. Punjab alone accounted for 298 such cases and 461 kg seized, primarily heroin (449.751 kg) and methamphetamine (9.018 kg). Overall, Punjab accounted for 2,086 kg of narcotics seized, representing 58% of total seizures, which amounted to 3,567 kg across the country.

“The scale of this threat is underscored by the growth trajectory: from just 3 incidents (10 kg) in 2021, incidents surged to 35 (148 kg) in 2022, then 28 (103 kg) in 2023, before accelerating sharply to 178 incidents (236 kg) in 2024 and 305 incidents (468 kg) in 2025, a 100-fold increase in incident count over five years,” the report said.

Land and maritime routes

This exponential rise reflects the growing operational maturity of trafficking networks using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to circumvent traditional border controls, the NCB said. Additional incidents were reported in Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir.

“The South Asian arm [of the drug trade via Afghanistan] flows through Pakistan into India via both the land frontier in Punjab and Rajasthan, and the maritime frontier along the Gujarat and Maharashtra coastlines, the latter a route of increasing concern given its use of fishing vessels and coastal craft that operate below the detection threshold of standard maritime surveillance,” the NCB said, adding that the Afghanistan–Pakistan–Iran corridor remains the world’s primary opiate trafficking complex.