Curbing the menace of cannabis smuggling has become a major challenge for Odisha police. The smugglers are not only using more ingenious ways of transporting the contraband, they have also become bold enough to resort to violence against police personnel. Recently a police party conducting a raid to seize smuggled ganja at a village in Koraput district faced the ire of the villagers who were part of the racket.
Although the villagers claimed that they resorted to violence against the police personnel as they misbehaved with their women, there is no denying the fact that cannabis smuggling has been taking place in the area. In fact, both Koraput and the adjoining Malkangiri district, are notorious for the illegal ganja trade. Illegal cannabis plantations flourish in the deep forests of these districts under the patronage of Maoist rebels who also patronize ganja smuggling.
Worried about the growing menace of ganja cultivation and smuggling, the Odisha government has decided to use cutting-edge technology, including drones, satellite imagery and remote sensing to locate and destroy illegal plantations. State police and excise officials had jointly destroyed 22,217 acres of cannabis and hemp plantations in 2020-21. But cannabis cultivation continues to flourish in many parts of the state, including Koraput and Malkangri.
Cannabis farming has been reported from Boudh, Deogarh, Gajapati, Ganjam, Kandhamal, Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Angul and Sambalpur districts. Though sustained drive by police and excise officials has succeeded in reducing the scale of cultivation in some areas the menace is far from over. In districts such as Koraput and Malkangiri the cultivators, mostly poor tribals, enjoy the patronage of Maoist ultras who have been making money out of the cannabis trade to fund their violent activities aimed against the state.
The government has now also decided to strengthen its intelligence gathering mechanism at the local level to identify villages where cannabis is being grown illegally. While collectors have been asked to prepare action plans for prevention of such illegal farming activities, they have also been directed to identify poor tribal families who survive on this cultivation so that they can be offered alternative livelihood opportunities and weaned away from the trade.
This is significant because not only Maoist ultras but even ganja smugglers take advantage of the poverty of tribal people in districts such as Malkangiri and Koraput and use them as couriers who often get caught by police and excise officials and land in jail. There is also a need to create greater awareness among people in the rural belt of these districts about the disastrous impact of cannabis on human health. This can be done only with the involvement of village communities, representatives of panchayat raj institutions, NGOs and self-help groups (SHGs). The government is looking to step up its efforts in this direction.
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