Bhubaneswar: Despite the government’s sustainable efforts to stop marijuana cultivation and marijuana smuggling in the state, drug mafia continues to promote illegal cultivation of plants with impunity.
According to a written reply by Excise Minister Niranjan Pujari in the Assembly on Monday, marijuana plants worth more than Rs 979 Crore were destroyed in different districts in the past three years.
Responding to the question of MLA Ananta Das, Pujari said the marijuana cultivation was largely carried out in Malkangiri, Boudh, Kandhamal, Rayagada, Coraput, Gajapati, Angul, Deogarh, Ganjam, Ladydom and Sambalpur Regency.
The minister said the farmers usually cultivate hemp in unrestricted hilly fields and Maoist-stricken areas.
“Marijuana plants are worth more than RS 137 Crore and spread in 9,473 hectares of land destroyed by excise officials in 2018-19; plants worth Rs 498 Crore and spread in 15,978 hectares returned in 2019-20; more than RS 325 Crore, plants are valued More than 22,217 hectares in 2020-21 and RS 18 crore plants were removed from 1371 hectares in 2021-22 (up to October), “Minister said.
With Odisha getting infamanjity into a nest of marijuana smuggling in the country, the state government recently asked the district collectors to identify marijuana cultivators and encourage them to grow vegetables and other plants.
Many Dhuliput tribes in Malkangiri Regency protested at the Head Office Pancrayat last month demanding remunerative prices from the various vegetables they planted.
They also asked the government to register them in several schemes if they wanted to stop growing marijuana plants.
The price of marijuana market is everything between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1 Lakh for one kg depending on the quality.
Anyone who farmed marijuana can be imprisoned for up to 10 years and fined until Rs 1 lakh under Part 20 of the Narcotics Act and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS).
The Odisha police confiscated around 523 marijuana quintals in 2018, 618 Kuintals in 2019, 1,374 quintals in 2020 and 1,229 quintals in 2021 (up to August).
In October this year, Chief Chief of Chhattisgarh Bhupesh Baghel has expressed serious concern for marijuana smuggling from Odisha to other countries.
Baghel has made the statement after the SUV, allegedly carrying contraband goods from Odisha to Madhya Pradesh, crashing into religious procession in Yashpur Chhattisgarh Regency, killing several people and injuring several people.
Marijuana plants are worth more than RS 979 Crore destroyed in Odisha in the last three years
