In 1973, the Visakhapatnam District Police had faced a dilemma when they caught a person trying to smuggle a small quantity of dry ganja from the Agency area.
This was the first recorded case of ganja smuggling, and the police had no proper and well-defined IPC section to book a case for drug smuggling as the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act had come into force only in 1985.
But things have changed in the pristine and salubrious Agency areas since then.
Today, nine out of the 11 mandals in the Agency area have become the ‘ganja capital’ of the State and stand next to the Chamba Valley of Himachal Pradesh when it comes to cultivation and smuggling.
The ‘Sheelavathi’ variety grown in the Visakha Agency is among the most sought-after weeds that has a pan-India demand today.
The crop has not come up overnight. It has taken the middlemen from Kerala and Tamil Nadu several years to motivate and train the Adivasi farmers, who mostly belong to the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG), to switch from the traditional ‘podu’ (shifting) cultivation to grow marijuana on their fields.
The middlemen were none other than the smugglers who once flourished growing marijuana, or cannabis, on the hilly tracts of Dindigul and Idukki, and were driven away by the personnel of the Department of Excise in those States.
“Later, they might have come and settled down in the Visakha Agency,” said DIG, Visakhapatnam (Range), L.K.V. Ranga Rao.
That appeared to be the genesis, as all the 11 ‘unexplored’ mandals in the Agency provided the ideal setting. The climate and soil conditions were conducive. The innocent Adivasis could be influenced by offering them a little more than what they had been earning till then. And, most importantly, they had the patronage of the banned CPI(Maoist), which had made its presence felt in the region from the early 1980s.
Vigil had been stepped up in the last one decade, and the quantum of seized contraband was in hundreds of kg.
Drone mapping done a couple of years ago had indicated that over 20,000 acres was under ganja cultivation, especially in the mandals where the Maoists held a sway such as Pedabayalu, G. Madugula, Munchingput, G.K. Veedhi and Chintapalli.
To step up the enforcement, the State government had constituted the Special Enforcement Bureau (SEB). This year, the SEB was entrusted with the task of destructing the ganja crop.
Both the SEB and the police had registered about 800 cases, arrested 1,879 accused, seized 809 vehicles, and confiscated close to 122 tonnes of dry ganja that was worth about ₹61 crore.
“While the arrests and seizures are just one part of the operation, the main agenda is destructing the crop and motivating the tribal farmers to take up an alternative crop system under the ‘Parivarthana’ programme,” said SEB Joint Director Satish Kumar.
The SEB and the police had so far destroyed the crop in about 7,124 acres in about eight key mandals, the value of which, as per conservative estimates, could be ₹1,700 crore.
“There is still a long way to go. We are covering every village. But the best part is that a few farmers have volunteered to destroy the crops themselves after being explained the consequences of the NDPS Act and the ills of growing ganja to society. So far, crop in about 400 acres has been destroyed voluntarily,” said Mr. Satish Kumar.
“Efforts are on to catch the kingpins. In October, DGP Gautam Sawang, at an inter-State coordination meeting, had stressed the need to nab them,” he said.
To evade checks, the ganja smugglers have found a new way to push their products. They are now crushing the leaves and converting them into liquid ganja, or hashish oil.
“One litre of hashish oil is 20 times the value of one kg of dry leaves. It can be smuggled easily,” said a senior police officer.
