As many as 15,000 acres of illegal hemp cultivation areas were wiped out by enforcement agencies in Odisha in last year with authorities concerned stepping up satellite imagery vigil on the harvesting of such banned produce.

On the other hand the agencies concerned could hardly manage to arrest four offenders who grew the banned substances despite the vast expanse of cultivated area spread across in at least eight districts of the State.

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Though 350 cases under legal provisions were registered with maximum numbers of cases filed in Boudh and Gajapati districts, the interception rate of offenders was abysmally low, raising questions on the efficiency of law enforcing agencies. The hemp plants after harvesting would have fetched the growers a whopping Rs 1.77 crore.

Cannabis, a banned substance, is churned out from the hemp plants. Odisha is one of the leading cannabis producing States in India while eight districts – Rayagada, Malkangiri, Koraput, Boudh, Kandhamal, Gajapati, Ganjam and Nabarangpur – are widely regarded as the epicenter of hemp cultivation.

The culprits were apparently allowed to flee and escape from stringent provisions of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) act. The unscrupulous elements in the enforcement agencies often disseminate information in advance of the impending raid, thereby leading to hemp growers to escape from arms of law.

This showed lack of coordinated strategy and concerted approach by the enforcing agencies to arrest the offenders before or during the destruction drive, confided an official.

The cultivation of hemp plants has been banned under Section 8 of the NDPS Act, 1985 while the Act provides for immediate arrest and prosecution of drug traffickers involved in this illicit cultivation.

In a bid to nip cannabis cultivation in the bud, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) under the Ministry of Home Affairs had earlier devised a comprehensive action plan in 2013 to be adopted by the States to control illicit cultivation.

Hemp cultivation has emerged as a money-minting source of income. The poor people living in forest-side villages are often ensnared by middlemen and agents of drug smuggling rackets. They are encouraged and funded to cultivate hemp by the racket members.

With return from the hemp being more than 100-fold than that of the paddy cultivation, the poorer sections fall into the trap. The yield from an acre of paddy cultivation will at best give an annual return of Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000, the return from hemp could be as high as Rs 10 lakh.