| The ganja divide
There is no doubt that once one strikes lucky, ganja smuggling is a lucrative trade and by the same token ganja cultivation offers a far more inviting prospect than cultivating cash crops or other food crops to many of the people. As market forces would testify there is a big market for Manipuri ganja and the climate and soil type are obviously well suited for ganja cultivation.
Given the fact that ganja means easy money with little investment, other than the risk of getting busted, it is not surprising to see that ganja is cultivated on hundreds if not thousands of acres across the length and breadth of the State. This is particularly true in areas where there are literally no irrigation facilities and government enforcement agencies do not have easy access.
Two distinct classes of people may be linked to ganja trade - the cultivators and the smugglers. While to the cultivators, ganja cultivation may just be a means for eking out a living, the perspective is different for the smugglers; ganja means big money that would enable them to maintain a certain standard of living. Never mind the government ban, ganja cultivation and hence smuggling are carried out on a large scale in Manipur.
The recent report carried in this paper of crackdowns launched against cultivation and smuggling is ample proof of the widespread cultivations and smuggling of ganja.
Trading in ganja is undoubtedly a profitable venture and even the United Front Government under the Chief Ministership of W. Nipamacha had toyed with the idea of legalizing ganja cultivation in the State. That this idea never came to fruition is another but the matter of greater import at this moment is to ask what steps the Government has taken up to check ganja cultivation and smuggling.
The fact that there were case of involvement of security personnel and officers in ganja smuggling have made the task of the government in dealing with the matter all that tougher. As a preliminary step, the government may offer other options to the cultivators. As some ganja cultivators, whose plants were destroyed on Thursday said, they had no choice as the drought like situation had blown away their chances of cultivating paddy.
Moreover no pump sets were available so they had to give the go by to cultivating vegetables. As long as the authority concerned are not able to offer alternative measure to the people at the village level, then it will prove very tough to effectively deal with ganja plantation and hence smuggling.
Legalizing plantations may yield some result and the state may earn lots of revenue but that is no answer to the current issue of checking ganja smuggling and plantation. The administration has to come up with something concrete rather than destroying ganja plants, though the step is welcomed.
(Courtesy: The Sangai Express)
|
Welcome! 
International
Features
