100-day action plan to combat ganja menace continues in full force across ASR district

This year alone, officials have distributed around 3.86 lakh agricultural and horticultural crops to farmers as an alternative to ganja cultivation

As part of the 100-day action plan to curb ganja cultivation and consumption in the Agency areas, the district police in coordination with the officials from several other departments have booked 62 cases and seized about 4,386.85 kg ganja, starting from June 12 up till now, across various mandals here in Alluri Sitharama Raju (ASR) district. About 234 persons have been booked under NDPS and other relevant sections.

The authorities have also been distributing various agricultural and horticultural crops like silver oak, avocado, custard apple, dragon fruit, cashew, strawberries, orange, etc., to the farmers to motivate them to cultivate new crops as an alternative to ganja. This year alone, authorities distributed about 3.86 lakh crops to the farmers and new plantations were raised in 4,198 acres in Agency areas.

Upon coming to power in June this year, the NDA-government launched a 100-day action plan to combat ganja trade and usage. Since Agency areas in ASR district are a hotbed of ganja cultivation, authorities have initiated special measures, such as organising rallies, seminars and awareness programmes among the youth.

The district administration has brought together all the unions — auto-rickshaw, jeep, parents, teachers, RTC buses, elderly persons — to constitute mandal-level and village-level anti-ganja committees, which hold weekly meetings.

Further, the district police are using drones to monitor ganja plantations in the interior habitations and technologies to nab those storing the stock after procuring it from parts of Odisha and supplying to smugglers from North Indian states.

As per the officials, since 2019, about 1,230 cases were booked and 1.94 lakh kg of ganja was seized in ASR district.