News in Frames: Licensed to bloom

There are lone a fewer regions successful India wherever ineligible cultivation of opium poppy is permitted.

Thousands of farming families successful Madhya Pradesh’s Malwa and Rajasthan’s Mewar portion sow the harvest successful tiny onshore plots nether the licences issued by the Union government. The farming usually starts arsenic the Deepavali festivities gully to a close.

The portion produces astir 85% of India’s legally grown opium. The districts see Mandsaur, Neemuch and parts of Ratlam successful Madhya Pradesh and Pratapgarh, Chittorgarh, and parts of Kota and Jhalawar districts successful Rajasthan.

The cultivation signifier successful the portion has been passed down done generations, with immoderate families increasing it for much than 200 years.

The opium, locally called afeem, is tied to household traditions and prestige alike with a fashionable saying — afeem ka patta ladke se badhkar hai(opium licence is bigger than a son).

Farmers accidental that the licence besides helps with the matrimony prospects of their children.

The farming requires skilled labour, nurturing of plants, and extortion of the tract and the yield. Across villages successful Mandsaur, Neemuch and Jaora tehsil of Ratlam, 1 tin witnesser tiny onshore parcels protected with fencing and saris utilized arsenic covers, and nets covering the plots from the top.

The licensing, enforcement and procurement is controlled by the Central Bureau of Narcotics (CBN) that issues licences of 2 types. Under the opium gum licence, farmers are allowed to extract the latex by lancing the poppy capsule portion nether the ore of poppy straw (CPS) licence, the CBN procures the capsule without lancing and the poppy straw directly.

The crops are typically harvested successful March aft Holi.

_{Text by Mehul Malpani}