|  This is one use of a washing machine that Bajrang Singh Shekhawat, the deputy superintendent of police in Bhawani Mandi, could never have imagined. When he raided Phool Singh and his son Devi Singh's farm in the opium cultivation heartland of Jhalawar in Rajasthan, Shekhawat found opium being mixed with other chemicals in the washing machine. Interestingly, Phool Singh is an office bearer of the Congress in Jhalawar. In less than half a decade, Jhalawar in Rajasthan has graduated to producing smack from opium and turning its growers-who prided themselves in never consuming opium-into smack addicts. From this tiny haven, smack travels 700 km north to places like Hanumangarh, Sri Ganganagar, Sirsa, Abohar and Fazilka, a region formerly infamous for poppy husk and addicted farm labourers. Investigations by India Today in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana reveal a startling increase in opium products' consumption, making it a Rs 1,200 crore retail business in these areas alone. In Rajasthan, 1.8 lakh kg of poppy husk was seized in 2004 as compared to 63,500 kg in 2002. In Mandsaur district in Madhya Pradesh, 28 kg of smack and 33,800 kg of poppy husk have been seized this year. "Every third child in Rajasthan will be a drug addict after two decades," warns Narain Singh Manaklao, MP, who was nominated to the Rajya Sabha for his three decades of work with opium addicts in Rajasthan. He puts the number of addicts in the state at 35 lakh-mainly college students and the poor. The economics of opium cultivation has resulted in more consumption in and around the home turf even though the area under poppy cultivation has been halved to 7,300 hectares in the past two years. The high demand and low production has resulted in skyrocketing prices. Smack, being easier to carry since it occupies lesser space than opium, is the drug of choice. And the chain begins here. The unemployed are first made addicts and then turned into carriers, who distribute it free to others, addicting them and forcing them to add more users to the group.  | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | CHASING DEATH: Smack addicts; opium being produced
"Every third child in Rajasthan will be an addict in 20 years."
NARAIN SINGH MANAKLAO, RAJYA SABHA MEMBER
| | Sale in cultivation areas is less risky, offers a consistent demand with higher returns than what international smugglers offer. "This reduction in cultivation has not affected the illicit trade. Instead, it has multiplied the smugglers' profits," says Uday Lal Anjana, former Congress MP and a major player in the opium husk trade for 30 years. At the bottom of the opium economy chain are 73,000 farmers in Chittorgarh, Baran, Kota and Jhalawar districts of Rajasthan and Mandsaur, Neemach, Shajapur, Ujjain and Ratlam in Madhya Pradesh. Three-fourths of opium in India grows in Chittorgarh, Neemach and Mandsaur districts. India is the only country in the world licensed to grow opium. The Central Bureau of Narcotics (CBN) regulates cultivation of opium and has not issued new permits since 1999. In fact, it has reduced the number of permits from 46,000 in 2003-4 to 35,000 for the coming crop in 2005-6. The CBN, which sometimes is accused of allowing a little diversion during procurement, buys opium paste at rates ranging between Rs 800 and Rs 2,200 a kg, depending on quality. The paste is then handed over to government factories at Neemach (Madhya Pradesh) and Ghazipur (Uttar Pradesh), where it is readied for export mainly to the US. The economics of opium works in two ways. Legally, a grower gets Rs 7,000 per 100 kg for opium, Rs 600 for poppy husk (against minimum support price of Rs 1,200 that contractors do not pay) and Rs 15,000 for poppy seeds, widely known as khuskhus. With a minimum return of Rs 22,000 from a 0.1 hectare poppy farm, opium is an attractive cash-crop. Soyabean grown on as big a farm would fetch only Rs 4,000. Then begins the illicit trade. Official estimates put diversification into illicit trade at 20-30 per cent. On an average, a farmer sells 1-1.5 kg of opium clandestinely and pockets Rs 20,000-32,000. It provides the opium grower an income of Rs 50,000-65,000 per month, translating into Rs 450-585 crore in the hands of farmers alone. Poppy husk is no less lucrative. For decades, it was either discarded in the fields or sold for Rs 2 a kg primarily to farm labourers along the Punjab-Haryana border to make them work harder. State governments began contracting poppy husk in 1993-94. In 2005, the Rajasthan Government earned Rs 70 crore by auctioning poppy husk. In Madhya Pradesh, revenue is Rs 24 crore per year despite a higher yield as Rajasthan does not allow opium to be smuggled in easily. Only one-third of actual produce of husk is brought on excise records. In Rajasthan in 2003-4, when legal opium production should have resulted in about 5.5 lakh kg of husk, excise records showed just 1.5 lakh kg so as not to admit an increase in produce-and the number of addicts. This surplus also evades excise to the tune of Rs 10 crore and helps wholesalers to sell it in Rajasthan and neighbouring states that do not have licensed vends. "It is an informal understanding to let them sell the surplus after offering higher revenue in auctions," admits a senior excise official. Even the mandatory condition of selling it only to a medical permit holder is ignored, allowing even children to buy it. Beginning at Rs 6 a kg, the husk is sold through Punjab and Haryana at around Rs 800 a kg. "In Kararwala village in Sri Ganganagar, there are 95 smack addicts. The wives of five of them have deserted them," says Jaswant Singh Dhillon, pradhan of Sadulshahar, a.k.a."smack mandi". Police admit they can't prevent drug smuggling, blaming heavy political patronage. If some local leaders have smack brands named after them in growing areas, some MLAs in Sri Ganganagar and Hanumangarh districts get a regular supply. A former chief minister of Haryana and two of Madhya Pradesh have even influenced the police to allow opium smuggling. The solution to the problem-excluding the best option to ban opium cultivation-is to hand over opium farming to the government and restrict it to one region. This will be easier to monitor than 73,000 individual fields. But this can happen only if politicians agree or begin to suffer as growers and makers have. As Manaklao says: "It will not happen unless children of politicians start becoming addicts." Hopefully, the authorities will wake up before this becomes a reality.
Index
|
Rs 1,200 cr is the retail turnover for opium products in MP, Haryana and Punjab.
