Tobacco-Free Youth Campaign 4.0 Launched as 60-Day Drive

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Ayush and Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Shri Prataprao Jadhav flagged off the fourth edition of the Tobacco-Free Youth Campaign (TFYC 4.0) on 28 October 2026 at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences and Dr. Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi. He also administered the Say No to Tobacco pledge to the gathering and asked young people to serve as ambassadors of a tobacco-free India.

What the drive sets out to do

The campaign belongs to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and runs for 60 days across the country. Its four planks are keeping young people from taking up tobacco in the first place, pushing existing users towards quitting, tightening enforcement of tobacco control statutes and widening tobacco-free surroundings. The ministry has held the drive every year since 2023, and it has drawn in students, teachers, institutions, enforcement staff, doctors and local communities.

Universities take the lead this time

What marks the fourth edition out is its dedicated attention to Higher Educational Institutions. Colleges and universities are to build tobacco-free campuses, run student-led awareness, meet the Tobacco-Free Educational Institutions (ToFEI) guidelines and bring faculty members into prevention work. The reasoning is that adolescence and early adulthood are the stages at which tobacco use usually begins, so peer influence applied early lasts longest.

The six strategies

• Sharper awareness and behaviour-change messaging on tobacco and nicotine addiction
• Compliance with the ToFEI guidelines in schools and colleges
• A wider Tobacco-Free Villages push through panchayats and local bodies
• Firmer enforcement of COTPA, 2003 and the Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Act, 2019
• Digital and social media outreach aimed at the young
• A special effort inside universities and colleges

What the first three editions delivered

Fines of more than one crore rupees were realised in the first edition and above 1.1 crore rupees in the second. The third edition also carried out more than 58,000 enforcement drives, issued 1,45,477 challans under Section 4 of COTPA, which bars smoking in public places, and trained over 60,000 enforcement personnel and cessation counsellors. Added together, the three editions have had over 5.8 lakh educational institutions and more than 73,000 villages declared tobacco-free.

Why the young are the target

The Minister pointed out that tobacco smoke carries more than 7,000 chemicals, many of them toxic or cancer-causing, and that second-hand smoke harms family members as well. Nicotine taken in during adolescence, he warned, tells on brain development, attention, memory and the ability to learn. He recalled the Prime Minister's appeal on de-addiction in the Mann Ki Baat broadcast of 30 August 2026. Health Secretary Smt. Punya Salila Srivastava, who also spoke, said an addiction-free generation is basic to the goal of a developed India. The edition follows a whole-of-government approach, with the health ministry working alongside the ministries of education, panchayati raj, rural development, youth affairs and sports, home affairs, finance and others.