Peddlers lure Odisha tribals to grow ganja
Ganja plantation in the Chintoor mandal of Alluri Sitharama Raju district
Hyderabad: Why are police unable to check ganja cultivation on the Andhra Odisha Border (AOB) despite Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana police sharing intelligence output and organising operations to control the menace?
Malkangiri District Superintendent of Police Nitesh Wadhawani told Hans India that the police in 2023 had siezed 21,000 kg of ganja and arrested 212 accused. Similarly, last year they sieged 35,800 kgs and arrested 418 people. It has been found that of them about 130 accused belong to Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and other states. One of the organisers was even from Tamil Nadu, he said.
Wadhwani said that cultivation in some parts of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha was continuing. The main reason is inhospitable terrain. Reaching the areas where it is cultivated is not so easy.
The smugglers reach the place through the hills and reach Rajahmundry national highway while the police which must go by road would take about two hours.
He pointed out that they had put up eight static posts. But on the AP side for the entire stretch of the national highway, it seems there is only one static post. Harvested ganja in Odisha is being stored in AP, he said.
He further said that as far as Odisha is concerned they had destroyed ganja in about 4,800 acres last year and 2,800 acres so far this year. It would take another year or so to clear the entire area, he added.
He said another reason was that the tribals do not know that it is illegal to cultivate ganja. "For 20 years there were no elections in their area due to extremism. Last year elections were held, and it was during that time they came to know that it is illegal to cultivate ganja," he said.
AP police have done excellent work to curtail the menace. But what is happening is that the tribals do not have regular income and hence they are falling prey to lumpsum offered by smugglers from outside and were cultivating ganja.
The economics of smuggling is such that tribal people cultivate in their individual plots of half an acre or one. The sponsors offer Rs 1,200 per kg. When the same ganja goes to Uttar Pradesh, it sells at Rs 8,000 per kg, and when it reaches the NCR regions, the price per KG goes anywhere over Rs 10,000 per kg, he said.