164
REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94.
[APP.
Control on the growth of hemp.
INDORE STATE MEMORANDUM.
The cultivation of the hemp plant for the purpose of producing bhang, ganja and charas
is so extremely limited in this State that there is no scope
whatever
for putting it under administrative control. The
whole area under narcotic hemp plant cultivation is given in the appendix.* The figures given
there show that the maximum area during the last twenty years was 354 bighas, minimum 66
bighas, and the average 181 bighas.
The cultivation is confined to a few mahals in the Nimar district, bordering on the
Narbada, and in Sanwer a few miles to the north of Indore. Thus it will be seen that
although the State puts no restriction on the cultivation, or controls it in any way whatever,
the ryot has not found it to his advantage to grow it largely, although the plant is capable of
thriving almost everywhere in the State.
There is no special rate of assessment charged on land under hemp cultivation; but is
determined solely by the quality of the soil, and is usually Rs. 7 to Rs. 8 a bigha.
No wild hemp is found in the State. Here or there a plant may be seen by road or river
side or near the huts of fakirs, etc., due to the dropping of the hemp seed by consumers.
The growth being thus limited the manufacture of ganja
Manufacture.
and bhang is necessarily so.
Under the excise system prevalent in Indore, the import and export of the hemp drugs
are not shown under a separate head denoting the hemp drugs,
Importation and exportation.
but are included under the general head of ' kirana ' (i. e.,
drugs, spices, etc.), and cannot therefore be accurately given. There is no doubt that the drugs
are both imported into the State and exported from it, but not to that extent which would
make it desirable to assign special heads in the State accounts to their traffic. As in the
case of cultivation, so here there are no restrictions on either the importation or exportation
of any of the hemp drugs. They can be imported or exported by any body to any extent
without a license on the payment merely of the fixed duty. Practically the trade is so
limited as not to require its regulation by the State. The importers of ganja and other drugs
are generally the banias and there is no limit fixed to the storing and transport of these drugs,
by them.
Sale.
The sale is either (1) wholesale or (2) retail.
No license is required for wholesale, and there is no maximum limit to the quantity a
wholesale dealer may sell at a time. There is, however, a minimum limit, namely, 60 seers,
prescribed by a regulation of the State below which the wholesale dealer may not sell on pain
of liability to confiscation of his commodity and a fine up to Rs. 50 by the customs officer
and to unlimited amount by the Darbar. The occasions on which the darbar have exercised
its powers in this respect are very rare indeed, and have done so extremely moderately. The
State prescribes no minimum or maximum price of sale, and the wholesale dealer may dispose
of his ware at any price it may fetch.
The right to sell in retail is farmed out by public auction, and none but the leaseholder or
his agents can make retail sales. The ijardar or leaseholder is at liberty to open any num-
ber of shops at any place which may be convenient to him, In practice, however, it is
understood that he follows the advice of the customs officers of the State. As a matter of fact
at present the retail farmer has only one shop of his own in the city of Indore, and has com-
missioned fifteen tobacco-sellers, to whom he sells a quantity not exceeding half a seer at an in-
terval of two or three days, to sell for him. In the mofussil the contractor usually has one shop
at the head-quarters of every mahal, making about forty shops in all in the districts. Although
it cannot be said that the number of shops is determined deliberately with a view to area and
population, it naturally adjusts itself to the demand, and therefore indirectly to area and
population.
There is no such thing in the State as "local option" firstly, because the matter is so
small as not to require any such measure being adopted by the State; and, secondly, because
the people themselves have never asked and have no need for it. The thing does not amount
to an evil giving rise to complaints requiring a remedy.
The average amount of the retail contract for the last eleven years is Rs. 5,140 per year.
The law prescribes no limit, maximum or minimum, in point of quantity to the retail sales to,
or possession by, a consumer. But it has fixed the rates of the retail sale of each of these
drugs, which are as follows: ganja, at half a seer a rupee in Indore city and one seer a
* Not printed.