BERAR MEMORANDUM.
111
BERAR MEMORANDUM.
B.
The administration of hemp drugs in the Hyderabad Assigned Districts is regulated
by the Abkari rules, copies of which have been sent to Secretary, Hemp Drugs Commission.
Opium and hemp drugs in the Hyderabad Assigned Districts are treated in one farm, and
where opium shops exist, hemp drugs are allowed to be sold.
This farm is worked uniformly throughout all the districts in the Hyderabad Assigned
Districts by the Deputy Commissioners through their tahsildars. There are no separate
Excise officers to control the vend of drugs. A monopoly of the right to vend is sold by
auction each year by the Deputy Commissioners under the orders of the Commissioner, and
the highest bidder usually obtains it and is licensed. The opium and hemp drugs farm being
sold together, the proceeds are credited to opium and drugs. No information is, therefore,
separately available as to the value of hemp drugs, and hence the columns requiring this
information in the appended statement C are left blank. It is, however, supposed that the
revenue from hemp drugs is about one anna in the rupee, or 1/16th of the value of the whole
farm auctioned. This statement is based on enquiries made of the farmers, and as nothing
certain can be obtained, I have omitted these figures from statement C.
The question of separating the sales of hemp drugs from opium has been very recently
taken up, and it has been decided to separate them from the 1st April 1894.
I now turn to the points mentioned in the note accompanying letter No. 28, dated 11th
August 1893, and take them seriatim.
Control of the growth of the hemp
plant.
*Notification No. 55, dated 5th Aug-
ust 1874.
Up to the year 1875 the cultivation of ganja and bhang was not restricted in Berar.
Rules regulating and restricting the cultivation of ganja and
bhang in the Hyderabad Assigned Districts were first issued*
in the year 1874 and were brought into force from the 1st
of April 1875. Under these rules the cultivation of ganja
and bhang was strictly prohibited except under a license. The
Deputy Commissioners were authorized to grant such licenses,
and they had to be written on a stamp paper of Rs. 8 (to be supplied by the cultivator)
without reference to the area cultivated.
Under these rules the village officers were bound to make immediate reports of unlicensed
cultivation, and the Deputy Commissioners were authorized to cause the destruction of such
crops and plants of spontaneous growth. Cultivators of unlicensed ganja and bhang crops
were made liable to a fine not exceeding one hundred rupees for each offence, and half the
fines realized were made payable to informants as rewards.
The effect of these rules was that the cultivation of ganja was confined to a very few
villages in the Akola, Buldana and the Amraoti districts, the villages in the first two
districts being mostly in the vicinity of the town of Khamgaon and those of the Amraoti
district in the Morsi taluk of that district. Table A appended to this will show the extent
of ganja cultivation in the Hyderabad Assigned Districts between the years 1877-78 to 1892-
93, inclusive, and from the figures it will be observed that it has been very limited.
The above rules remained in force without any change till the year 1884, when they
were modified by increasing the fee for cultivation from Rs. 8 per license to Rs. 10 per acre or
part of an acre cultivated. This had the effect of further curtailing the cultivation of ganja,
vide figures in Table A. From the year 1885-86 the cultivation has gone down immensely.
At the time these modifications were made the Commissioner made it obligatory on the
vendors of ganja and bhang to keep accounts of their receipts and disbursements.
These modifications were originally introduced as a tentative measure, but have since
been continued. As it is, the amount of land cultivated is very insignificant: on an average
of the past seven years it is about 55 acres per year in the whole province.
The rules of 1875, therefore, with the modifications of 1884, are the rules at present in
force, and so far as is known works satisfactorily.
Manufacture or importation and sale
of hemp drugs.
As already stated, the farm for manufacture, etc., of hemp drugs is given out with the
opium farm, and consequently these drugs are manufactured,
imported, and sold by opium vendors only. The manner
of manufacturing these drugs is described in the Memoran-
dum A, which is separately submitted.