164 REPORT OF THE INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION, 1893-94. [APP.
INDORE STATE MEMORANDUM.
Control on the growth of hemp.
The cultivation of the
hemp plant for the purpose of producing bhang, ganja and
charas
is so extremely limited in
this State that there is no scope
whatever for putting it under
administrative control. The
whole area under narcotic
hemp plant cultivation is given in the appendix.* The figures
given
there show that the maximum
area during the last twenty years was 354 bighas, minimum
66
bighas, and the average 181
bighas.
The cultivation is
confined to a few mahals in the Nimar district, bordering on
the
Narbada, and in Sanwer a few miles to the north of Indore. Thus it
will be seen that
although the State puts no restriction on the cultivation, or
controls it in any way whatever,
the ryot has not found it to his advantage to grow it largely,
although the plant is capable of
thriving almost everywhere in the State.
There is no special rate
of assessment charged on land under hemp cultivation; but is
determined solely by the quality of the soil, and is usually Rs. 7
to Rs. 8 a bigha.
No wild hemp is found in
the State. Here or there a plant may be seen by road or river
side or near the huts of fakirs, etc., due to the dropping of the
hemp seed by consumers.
Manufacture.
The growth being thus
limited the manufacture of ganja
and bhang is necessarily
so.
Importation and exportation.
Under the excise system
prevalent in Indore, the import and export of the hemp
drugs
are not shown under a
separate head denoting the hemp drugs,
but are included under the general head
of ' kirana ' (i. e.,
drugs, spices, etc.), and
cannot therefore be accurately given. There is no doubt that the
drugs
are both imported into the State and exported from it, but not to
that extent which would
make it desirable to assign special heads in the State accounts to
their traffic. As in the
case of cultivation, so here there are no restrictions on either
the importation or exportation
of any of the hemp drugs. They can be imported or exported by any
body to any extent
without a license on the payment merely of the fixed duty.
Practically the trade is so
limited as not to require its regulation by the State. The
importers of ganja and other drugs
are generally the banias and there is no limit fixed to the storing
and transport of these drugs,
by them.
Sale.
The sale is either (1) wholesale or (2) retail.
No license is required
for wholesale, and there is no maximum limit to the quantity
a
wholesale dealer may sell at a time. There is, however, a minimum
limit, namely, 60 seers,
prescribed by a regulation of the State below which the wholesale
dealer may not sell on pain
of liability to confiscation of his commodity and a fine up to Rs.
50 by the customs officer
and to unlimited amount by the Darbar. The occasions on which the
darbar have exercised
its powers in this respect are very rare indeed, and have done so
extremely moderately. The
State prescribes no minimum or maximum price of sale, and the
wholesale dealer may dispose
of his ware at any price it may fetch.
The right to sell in
retail is farmed out by public auction, and none but the
leaseholder or
his agents can make retail sales. The ijardar or leaseholder is at
liberty to open any num-
ber of shops at any place which may be convenient to him, In
practice, however, it is
understood that he follows the advice of the customs officers of
the State. As a matter of fact
at present the retail farmer has only one shop of his own in the
city of Indore, and has com-
missioned fifteen tobacco-sellers, to whom he sells a quantity not
exceeding half a seer at an in-
terval of two or three days, to sell for him. In the mofussil the
contractor usually has one shop
at the head-quarters of every mahal, making about forty shops in
all in the districts. Although
it cannot be said that the number of shops is determined
deliberately with a view to area and
population, it naturally adjusts itself to the demand, and
therefore indirectly to area and
population.
There is no such thing in
the State as "local option" firstly, because the matter is so
small as not to require any such measure being adopted by the
State; and, secondly, because
the people themselves have never asked and have no need for it. The
thing does not amount
to an evil giving rise to complaints requiring a remedy.
The average amount of the
retail contract for the last eleven years is Rs. 5,140 per
year.
The law prescribes no limit, maximum or minimum, in point of
quantity to the retail sales to,
or possession by, a consumer. But it has fixed the rates of the
retail sale of each of these
drugs, which are as follows: ganja, at half a seer a rupee in
Indore city and one seer a
* Not printed.