66
REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94.
[APP.
In all districts except Hoshangabad and Chhindwara the wholesale ganja contract was
given to a single contractor: in the two districts named, the contracts were given by tahsils,
as in the preceding year.
29. The amount of ganja sold by wholesale vendors to retail dealers increased by 157
maunds, and there was a consequent rise in the direct duty levied. Wholesale vendors, how-
ever, paid on the whole less for their monopolies, the reason being that in some districts a
lower rate per seer had been accepted, with the object of leaving the contractor a good mar-
gin of profit and so encouraging him to supply good ganja and maintain efficient agents at
tahsils.
The lowering of the price to retail vendors from Rs. 3 to Rs. 2 in Sambulpur was sup-
plemented by special efforts to repress smuggling from feudatory States, and by enforcement
of the agreement with the wholesale vendor that only good, clean ganja should be supplied:
the result of these combined forces was that sales went up from nearly 5. maunds in 1882-83
to 21 maunds, the total revenue being at the same time more than doubled. Other districts
in which sales improved considerably were Nagpur, Jubbulpur, Seoni, Raipur and Bilaspur.
In Nimar sales fell off largely, but the retail license fee demand more than doubled, circum-
stances which are explained in the Excise Report for the year by the breaking up of gangs of
labourers employed in the preceding year on the G. I. P. and Rajputana railways and by reck-
less bidding at the sales by two rival contractors who had quarrelled.
No material change took place in the number of shops anywhere except in Sambulpur,
where the larger sales of taxed ganja demanded an increase in the number of licensed places
of vend.
The incidence of gross revenue per head of population was 22/3 pies.
30. The amount of ganja taken by feudatories and by zamindars who controlled their
own revenue from hemp-drugs was 80 maunds against 56 in 1882-83. The improvement was
due to the success in Raipur and Bilaspur of the arrangements made in 1880. The Sambulpur
feudatory Chiefs, on the other hand, did not co-operate cordially in the suppression of ganja
cultivation, and they took from the district wholesale vendor less than half of the amount
taken in the preceding year.
1884-85.
31. In 1884-85 a new form of wholesale license was introduced. The form prescribed in
1882 was not found to be sufficiently complete, and it was
supplemented in practice by a separate agreement. The
Gazette Notification publishing the substituted form is reproduced as Appendix J* to this
Memorandum.
32. The number of licenses for cultivation, the area cultivated, and the quantity of
ganja deposited in the Central Stores were all unprecedentedly high in this year. The figures
for 3 years are subjoined:—
1882-83.
1883-84.
1884-85.
Number of licenses to cultivate
506
590
1,277
Area under cultivation
925
1,144
2,881
Ganja deposited
(Mds.) 4,021
6,356
9,450
Most of the increase was in Nimar, where a large export trade was developing yearly.
In Nagpur cultivation had apparently been resumed by those who in 1881 refused to come to
terms with the provincial wholesale contractors: there was a substantial demand for them
to meet, as the locally produced drug was then preferred in the Nagpur country to that
imported from Nimar.
33. The revenue of the year was made up as follows:—
Rs.
A.
P.
Direct duty on ganja
66,123
5 6
Wholesale license fees—ganja
12,629
3 3
Retail
"
"
81,861 13 4
Direct duty on bhang
921 14 6
Retail license fees—majum
TOTAL
804
8 0
TOTAL
1,62,340 12 7
The amount of taxed ganja consumed in the Khalsa proper rose by 11 per cent. and the
total revenue demand by 25 per cent. This all round improvement was attributed in the
Excise Report for the year to the improved quality of the drug supplied, and the case of
Sambulpur, where retail license fees had risen by nearly Rs. 1,000, consumption had almost
doubled, and supplies to the surrounding feudatory States had gone up from 41/2 to 131/2 maunds,
was cited as proving the correctness of this explanation.
The total number of shops for retail vend increased from 851 to 921. All except 5 of the
additional shops were opened in the Nagpur district, where the retail monopolies were auctioned
*Not printed.