In narcotics administration, the battle against drugs extends far beyond enforcement. It involves closing loopholes in legal opium production, making government processes transparent and reaching young people before substance abuse takes hold. 2010 batch IRS officer Naresh Bundel, currently posted as Additional Commissioner at the Central Bureau of Narcotics (CBN), Kota, Rajasthan, has taken on all three challenges through digital innovation, administrative reform and a youth-focused awareness movement.
From developing a blockchain-based system to transform opium testing at Neemuch to doubling processing capacity at the government factory and launching Yuva Raksha, Bundel’s career offers an unusual blend of chemical engineering, public administration and preventive action against substance abuse.
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From IIT Bombay to the Indian Revenue Service
Born in Udaipur, Rajasthan, Bundel’s academic journey took him from his hometown to IIT Bombay, where he studied chemical engineering. After graduating, he worked with Deloitte Consultancy in Mumbai for two to three years before turning to the civil services.
Public service, however, was not a career choice that appeared suddenly. His interest went back to his school days, when he was actively involved in activities with non-governmental organisations. His parents remained his biggest source of motivation as he prepared for the civil services examination and joined the Indian Revenue Service in 2010.
His initial years in tax administration took him through Central Excise and Service Tax, and subsequently the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime, with postings including Udaipur, Jaipur and Kota. He approached each assignment with a practical objective: resolve inherited problems rather than simply carry them forward.
“I always wanted that whatever the major issues are at a particular place, I should try to clear them. When I move to another post, the person who comes after me should feel that they can spend more time doing something better, instead of carrying the old baggage,” he shared in an exclusive conversation with Indian Masterminds.
That approach would become particularly significant when his career moved from tax administration to the government’s opium production system.
Turning Opium Testing into a Transparent Digital Process
In November 2021, Bundel joined the Government Opium and Alkaloid Works at Neemuch, Madhya Pradesh. Initially hesitant about moving to a relatively small town, he soon found an opportunity to address a longstanding administrative challenge.
India permits the regulated cultivation of opium, with more than one lakh farmers engaged in legal cultivation, according to Bundel’s account. The Central Bureau of Narcotics oversees the licensing and regulation of cultivation, while the harvested opium is received and processed through government opium factories.
Testing the opium gum collected from farmers was a critical stage in the process. The existing system could take around six months to complete testing for approximately 70,000 farmers, creating delays and opportunities for intermediaries to exploit the process. Since opium cultivation licences must also be renewed, transparency and accountability were especially important.
Bundel and his team developed the Opium Container and Tracking Application (OKTA), a digital system designed to make testing traceable and auditable. Initially conceived using blockchain-based technology, it incorporated tracking mechanisms and QR codes to help establish a transparent record of the process.
The application was implemented during the following opium season, around March–April 2022. Over the next year or two, it developed into a more robust system.
The results were significant. According to Bundel, testing time fell from approximately six months to one month, while farmers could receive their test results within two days. Digitisation created audit trails throughout the process, reducing opportunities for manipulation and bringing what he described as corruption in the testing process down to virtually zero.
The reform was not simply about replacing paperwork with software. It changed how farmers experienced an essential government procedure, making the process faster, more transparent and easier to audit.
Doubling Production Without Outside Consultants
The same assignment offered Bundel an opportunity to draw on his chemical engineering background. The Neemuch factory, established in 1933, had a processing plant dating to 1975. Despite its age, he believed its capacity could be improved.
Working with the existing team, rather than bringing in external consultants, he helped increase annual opium gum processing capacity from approximately 150 metric tonnes to 300 metric tonnes.
For Bundel, the achievement demonstrated what could be accomplished when technical understanding was combined with administrative initiative and teamwork. His experience in tax administration had trained him to examine issues closely before making decisions, a skill that proved useful in the technically demanding environment of a government opium factory.
He also held responsibility for the factories during his tenure, gaining experience that connected industrial operations with the broader requirements of regulated narcotics administration.
MAPA: Tracking Legal Cultivation on the Ground
After moving to the Central Bureau of Narcotics in Kota, Bundel continued to focus on digitisation. One initiative was the Measurement Application for Cultivation Area (MAPA), developed to help monitor whether licensed farmers were growing the crop within their allocated areas.
The system brought a digital dimension to field-level monitoring, strengthening oversight of legal cultivation. Together, OKTA and MAPA reflect two complementary priorities: making the handling and testing of harvested opium more transparent, and ensuring that cultivation remains within authorised limits.
Yet Bundel’s work in Kota has also taken him beyond administrative systems and regulatory compliance, towards a challenge that cannot be addressed through technology or enforcement alone.
Yuva Raksha: Taking Drug Awareness Beyond Fear and Punishment
For Bundel, one of the most meaningful aspects of narcotics administration is preventing substance abuse before it begins. Kota, known for its large student population and coaching culture, offered a natural setting for a programme aimed at young people.
Around a year and a half ago, Bundel and his team launched Yuva Raksha, an awareness initiative designed to help school and college students understand the risks of substance abuse. Rather than relying on warnings, threats or fear-based messaging, the programme draws on neuroscience and psychology to explore how the brain works, how motivation develops and how young people make decisions.
The team has conducted lectures, interactive sessions and creative activities across the region. It has also invited students to participate in Manthan, encouraging them to suggest solutions to drug-related challenges and rethink how awareness programmes should be designed.
The objective is to make awareness a two-way conversation, rather than a lecture delivered to a passive audience. Bundel wants preventive programmes to become evidence-based, with their effectiveness assessed by the impact they have on students and children.
He credits the support of his team and the Narcotics Commissioner for helping the initiative grow beyond its initial setting, with the programme being expanded across the Central Bureau of Narcotics. The team has also explored collaborations with organisations such as the Brahma Kumaris and plans to engage other institutions to bring a spiritual dimension to its outreach.
“We do not want to merely threaten children or students by telling them what will happen if they engage in substance abuse. We want them to understand how their brain works, how motivation develops and how their choices affect them. I would be satisfied even if one child, student or young person could move away from substance abuse and lead a normal life,” Bundel says.
A Fight on Both Sides of the Drug Problem
Bundel recognises that narcotics administration must address both the supply of illicit substances and the demand that sustains their circulation. Enforcement and regulatory oversight remain essential, but prevention can make a difference long before a case reaches an investigating agency.
That is why Yuva Raksha holds particular significance for him. Its success may not always be visible in official statistics or identifiable through individual outcomes. A young person who changes course after an awareness session may never return to report that decision.
For an officer accustomed to systems that produce measurable results, this is a different kind of public service: one whose most important outcomes may remain unseen.
From a chemical engineering classroom at IIT Bombay to a government factory processing hundreds of tonnes of opium gum, and from digital tracking systems to conversations with students in Kota, Bundel has carried one principle across very different assignments. Administrative systems must work better, and public institutions must reach people before problems become harder to solve.
His contribution to narcotics administration is therefore not confined to controlling a regulated commodity or strengthening enforcement. It also lies in making processes more accountable and helping young people recognise the consequences of substance abuse before it takes hold.
For Bundel, the measure of that work may ultimately be a single life changed, quietly, anonymously and without the administration ever knowing whose future it helped redirect.
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