Agency gets illicit way to turn richer in Visakhapatnam

Visakhapatnam: Cannabis (ganja) cultivation is gaining ground in pattadar lands (record of land rights) in distant areas of Vizag Agency, while continuing to thrive in hills and forests in almost all its 11 mandals – with several people down the line making a fast buck.

Intelligence officials say that this is due not only to inter-state ganja smugglers, but because local businessmen and government employees in various departments too were investing in its cultivation for easy money.

A senior police officer said that government employees, assigned to work in remote areas, were investing in the business and availing of 50 per cent of profits from the crop.

The police and Excise officials seized over 32,000 kg of ganja worth Rs 10 crore and arrested 632 smugglers in 251 cases in 2015. In 2014, 23,650 kg were seized and cases were booked against 514 persons. The seizure of the ganja rose from 12,000 kg to 32,000 kg within a span of two years.

With the demand for ganja growing in other states, the smugglers, who include a few foreign nationals, have been visiting Vizag Agency to procure and smuggle the hemp to other parts. They can use all the help they can get, considering the risk involved – from its very cultivation to transportation – and government and private employees, who have been getting discreetly involved, are doing so as it is a lucrative alternative source of income.

The intelligence officials also learnt that the local ganja traders were roping in schoolchildren, using them to transport small quantities of contraband from one place to another in Vizag Agency by placing packets in their school bags to evade police checks.

New superintendent of police (Visakha Rural) Rahul Dev Sharma said that they were chalking out new strategies to check ganja cultivation and smuggling as Vizag had emerged a safe haven for the trade.

The police said that if the district administration cancelled the pattas of those whose land was being used to cultivate ganja in Vizag Agency, people would fear growing it and this would check the flow of money into the trade.