191

66.   There need not be different kinds of ganja.
Let it be chur only.

67.  No.

68.   Yes; but consumers should not be allowed
to smoke ganja in the shop, as this may lead to
a large gathering of people in one place, and is
likely to prove a source of nuisance. If each
takes away ganja from the shop and consumes it
in his own house, there is no probability of any
one being annoyed.

69.   The people of the neighbourhood are gen-
erally consulted, and I think this is sufficient.
The general public need not be consulted.

70.   Yes. Nepal ganja is smuggled into this
district, and affects the sale of ganja here.
This should be stopped. The bordering shops
suffer very much from this.

                        Oral evidence.

Question 1.—I have been four years in the
Government service, three years in this district,
and one in the 24-Parganas. The last three years
I have been Excise Deputy Collector in this dis-
trict, Bhagalpur.

Question 3.—The wild hemp plant is generally
found in alluvial lands (diyara) and other lands
which are submerged in the rainy season. These
lands comprise about one-fourth of the whole
district. It comes up year after year in the same
places, and I have frequently seen it. Such soil
carries linseed, gram, mustard, and similar crops,
and the hemp plant is found amongst the crop as
well as on the boundaries of the fields. It comes
up with the crops in almost the same quantity as
the crop, and the people do not take the trouble
to weed it out. I am not speaking of churs, but
of land which is regularly cultivated after the
water has subsided. It is in these lands that the
plant is principally found. The crop is removed
and the hemp plant is left standing and is allowed
to ripen and shed its seed.

By "chur" I mean a large sandy area in a river
bed which is not ordinarily cultivated. I have
never seen the hemp plant on a chur. I have seen
seven or eight fields of two or three bighas each in
which the bhang was as plentiful as the crop sown.
It is exceptional to find it growing so plentifully
as this. The growth is scattered through the crop.
I have seen these fields in the course of my jour-
neys to inspect excise shops. It was not an express
object of my tours to look for hemp plants, but I
consider it my duty to keep this work in view. I
did not make any notes of the places where I
found the hemp growing. I keep a diary, but I
am not sure if I ever mentioned the prevalence of
the hemp plant in any place. It is not found in
every village which contains land of the above
kinds, but I should expect to find it in at least a
half. The plant grows in the cold season, not in
the rains. I have never seen it in the rainy season,
even on the higher grounds. Nor have I ever seen
it on lands which are not covered with water in
the rainy season.

I have seen the hemp plant in the enclosures of
houses, and these enclosures also are liable to
submersion. I have never seen the plant growing
in jungles, but I have seen it in fields where no
crop has been grown, such fields being of the sort
of land described. It is frequently found in the
enclosures of houses. There are no orders in force

for the extirpation of the plant. There might be
occasional plants in enclosures which have not been
flooded, but there never is abundant growth in
such places.

It would be difficult for people to extirpate the
plant. They might clear it out one year, but it
would reappear in the next. In the village of
Kolgaon, the plant was once uprooted under the
circular, but it has now reasserted itself. This is
my only experience of the attempt to extirpate.
There is in my office a list of other places in which
extirpation was ordered, but I cannot say what
has been the result of the attempt. In many cases
also the plant grows over large patches of land,
and the raiyat would not be able to extirpate it
without great expense and labour. This difficulty
would be felt wherever the plant grows abundant-
ly. There is, in fact, an unlimited quantity of the
plant in those portions of the district which I have
indicated.

The people use bhang sometimes on such oc-
casions as the Dassara. They say they buy it at the
shops, but my belief is that they keep the wild
bhang by them. The goladars have the right to
collect the bhang everywhere, and the people never
object to their taking it from private lands. The
raiyats receive pay for gathering the plants for the
goladars, but they do not sell it. The goladar,
armed with a license, comes to me and informs me
from what villages he intends to collect the bhang.
I then give him a hukumnama authorizing him
to collect it in the villages named. He proceeds
to the villages and collects the bhang and brings
it to the gola, which is in charge of the Superin-
tendent of the distillery at Bhagalpur. From
this gola the bhang is removed on licenses issued by
the importing districts. Bhang is not cut in the
presence of an Excise officer as laid down in the
Excise Manual, because under the orders of the
Board of Revenue it is not necessary for goladars
of the producing district to be accompanied by
the Excise officer, and the exporters from this dis-
trict are also goladars of the district.

The exporters say that they bring all the bhang
to the head-quarters gola, and I believe they are
bound to do so. The bhang is collected by the
Calcutta dealer who exports it out of the district.
There are only two such dealers, both from Cal-
cutta. There is a sale in this district of 5 or 6
maunds every year. This is a very small propor-
tion of what is really used in the district.

There would be no difficulty in extirpating the
plant in tracts other than those where the plant
grows abundantly, but the tracts where the plant
does grow abundantly are scattered all over the
district.

The exports for the last five years have been as
follows:—

Nearly the whole of this went to Calcutta.
About three-fourths of the bhang exported from
this district last year was collected in Purnea.
This is not always the case, and it depends on
where the plant is growing in greater abundance,
where the exporter will collect it.