Farmers in Odisha risk jail to grow ganja
BHUBANESWAR: It is early evening and the 45-year-old tribal man is making his third visit of the day to his standing crop. Around him, the forests of Swabhiman Anchal, a region wracked by the state-Maoist conflict in Malkangiri, stand tall and dense. Right next to the plantation is a massive man made lake, along the banks of the Balimela reservoir. The man has been growing the same crop for many years, undeterred, as are most others who do what he does. He has heard whispers that growing the crop is now dangerous, that the police now have access to the area, that there will be raids. But he will only believe it when he sees them. The profits are too high. After all, the crop he grows, is not paddy, but marijuana.
“I have been growing Ganja (cannabis sativa and cannabis indica) along the banks of Balimela reservoir for the past several years. Not just me, several people in my village do it. Though I keep on hearing that there could be police raids, I have not seen any police in last several years,” said the tribal farmer in Badapadar grampanchayat. They certainly haven’t come this year.
His crop, planted on two acres, stands a foot tall and is a month-old. The season starts in September, just as the monsoon begins to withdraw. He waters
the crop thrice a day and has used urea too. Once the plant starts blooming, he will dry the pods in the sun, cure them and pack them in slabs. “The work is more difficult than paddy or millets. But it is easier in this terrain, and earns us more too. There are more risks now, but it is still worth it,” he said.
If caught, he could be jailed for up to 10 years and fined up to ₹1 lakh under Section 20 of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act that was enacted in 1985 replacing the Dangerous Drugs Act, 1930.
Though cannabis cultivation or intake was not a criminal activity earlier, it was criminalized
in 1985 after the NDPS Act came into being. By January, his slabs will be ready for sale and a local aggregator will collect it from the farmer who rattles of the economics of the business: cultivators get ₹700-800 a kg; every plant yields around a kg of the final product; an acre can accommodate 500 plants which means 500 kg; that’s ₹3.5 lakh₹4 lakh an acre for five months of work. Marijuana costs anything between ₹500 and ₹1,000 for 10 grams, which works out to ₹50,000 to ₹1,00,000 a kg.
Even as stories of drug seizures in big ports and raids on rave parties on cruise boats make the headlines, it is states such as Odisha that have emerged the primary source of drugs such as cannabis.
The growing numbers
Last week, police and excise officials said that they destroyed around 23,538 acres of cannabis in 10 districts of Odisha in 2020-21, the highest-ever. In 2020, Odisha seized 154,900 kg of cannabis, another highestever figure, up from 19,800 kg in 2015. This year, it has so far reached around 140,000 kg and police officials estimate will cross last year’s record by the end of this month. In contrast, in Andhra Pradesh, a state that has traditionally been associated with high cannabis cultivation, the police seized 42,300 kg of cannabis last year while this year they have seized over 80,800kg till the end of September. The NCRB Crime in India report 2020 puts the total seizures of “cannabis based drugs” under the NDPS Act at 853,554.414 kg. There is no nationally aggregated figure of cannabis seizure available with NCRB for last two to three years. Senior police officials said there were two reasons for the increase in number of seizures in 2020. The first, the lack of vehicular movement on the road during the lockdown induced by Covid-19. “It was easier to identify and confiscate cannabis-laden vehicles last year due to lockdown as there were less traffic on roads last year,” said Abilash G, sub-divisional police officer of Malkangiri, one of the main centres of the cannabis trade in the state.
The second, officials said, was an increased focus on the issue at the highest levels of the state government. Odisha chief secretary Suresh Mohapatra last week asked officials to identify land records of people on whose land cannabis is cultivated and provide poor tribal families making a living from the trade with alternate livelihood opportunities through a convergence of Odisha Livelihood Mission, National Livelihood Mission and MGNREGS. “Odisha has been among the biggest suppliers of cannabis for a long time due to large-scale plantation in the Maoist-affected hilly districts of Malkangiri, Koraput, Kandhamal, Gajapati, Boudh, Rayagada, Bargarh and few others. Now with the DGP [Abhay] focused on striking at the root of cannabis business, we are seeing seizures almost every 2-3 days in huge quantities,” said Jainarayan Pankaj, deputy inspector general of police of Special Task Force, the unit of Odisha police that has been tasked to go after the narcotics trade. Additional director of enforcement, NCB, Piyush Kumar Singh said that in terms of cultivated area of cannabis, Odisha tops the list. “If you see the cannabis seizures in northern states, invariably those too will be from Odisha,” Singh said.
The Smuggling In India report for the year 2019-20 released by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, identified Odisha as a source state, along with Andhra Pradesh, and flagged a more ominous, but inevitable consequence.
“There is a distinct trend emerging from these seizures which indicates a flow of huge quantities of ganja coming from Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, passing through Telangana, Chhattisgarh and MP before reaching the consumption centres in northern states, mainly Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Ganja not only has narcotics angle but also a national security concern as the illicit proceeds from the trafficking of it are used for feeding the growth of extremist activities,” the report said.
How Maoism is inextricably linked
Officials say that it is no coincidence that in Odisha, cannabis is largely grown in its deeply forested, hilly, sparsely populated tracks, intersecting with districts that have traditionally seen the highest Maoist influence.
“The Maoist hotbed of Swabhiman Anchal where most of the cannabis is grown, remained out of bounds for police till two years ago. It’s only after Maoist activities declined that police are being able to breach these areas. Even now police are not able to venture deep into the entire swathes of Swabhiman Anchal. In other districts such as Kandhamal and Gajapati, the topography is challenging,” said a senior official of the excise
department.