The Hindu Business Line : India’s opium report card ‘clean’

New Delhi, Sept. 18 The Centre has sought to allay apprehensions that licensed opium crop, cultivated for pharmaceutical use, was being diverted for illicit drug use.

Releasing its Annual Report on ‘Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries’ for the financial year 2008, the US Government had expressed “concern” over the potential diversion of licensed opium poppy crop for illicit drug use.

India has figured in the past editions of the annual list. However, sources in the Centre say the report is only taking note of recent crackdowns by the Central Bureau of Narcotics (CBN) on illicit cultivation in new regions such as West Bengal.

In May, over 6,000 hectares of illicit opium crop (less than 1,000 hectares of the 6,976 hectares cultivated officially in 2005-06) reportedly worth more than Rs 1,200 crore were destroyed in Murshidabad and Nadia districts of West Bengal. This case, however, would not amount to ‘diversion’ since licensed cultivation is only allowed in notified tracts in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, said a senior official.

The source pointed out that the US report compliments the country’s anti-narcotics initiatives. India has been identified as amongst those countries where exceptional factors are at play.

“The Government of India can be correctly proud of its diligent law enforcement agencies and the introduction of high-tech methods, including ‘Smart Cards’ for each licensed opium farmer,” says the report.

The CBN recently seized 189 kg of acidic anhydride, the precursor chemical used in the making of heroin from opium, in Mandsaur district, a notified opium cultivation tract in Madhya Pradesh. Sources say it is the availability of such precursor chemicals that is encouraging the illicit drug business and not an increased demand of opium per se.

More Stories on : Pharmaceuticals | Cultivation | Economic Offences

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page