Hyderabad: The Telangana government is cracking down on farmers who are cultivating the cannabis plant (which leads to the psychoactive drug marijuana, also known as ‘weed’ or ‘weed’).Hemp‘, is a derivative) and has identified more than a hundred such people, ThePrint has learned.
These farmers have been removed from the list of beneficiaries of the state’s popular cash assistance scheme for ‘Rythu Bandhu’ farmers, and have also been booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
According to an official of the state agriculture department, this For the first time farmers have been removed from Rythu Bandhu Beneficiaries’ list on such basis, The farmers were also booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
Telangana Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar last week, After presiding over the State Level Narcotics Coordination Meeting, announced With the decision of the state government to stop the benefits of ‘Rythu Bandhu’ to the farmers caught cultivating cannabis. He further said that this step is part of a bigger action on Hemp Cultivation and use in the state
State Director General of Police (DGP) M. Mahender Reddy, who attended the meeting, said that all the identified accused would be booked under the Preventive Detention Act, 1950.
State excise commissioner Sarfaraz Ahmed told ThePrint that his teams have identified 114 such farmers, those booked, The list of their names has been sent to the Revenue Department for further action.
“The list of 114 farmers is from January 2021 to April 2022. These farmers are scattered across the state. There is no point of large-scale farming, it is all very sporadic. Some of them were found cultivating about 50 cannabis plants and some had good plants of 100 or more. In some cases, we found that in the outer areas they had paddy cultivation, and in the inner part of the field they used to cultivate. Hemp In small quantities,” he said.
In some cases, farmers were even caught on the basis of secret information received by the police. There have also been cases of local residents filing police complaints against cultivators. Hemp, A source in the excise department told ThePrint that the district administration is monitoring such activities.
Excise commissioner Ahmed said some of these farmers were caught in Narayankhed town of Sangareddy district adjoining Hyderabad, while some others were from Kamareddy, another neighboring district of the state capital. He said the other Jaishankars belonged to Bhupalpally district and Chityala area of Nalgonda district.
“These districts are not far from Hyderabad. We have also identified some of them (farmers) in the north-west side districts of Telangana. The exercise was done after the Chief Minister focused his attention on curbing Hemp Last year the danger in the state followed his instructions, we decided to eliminate it from the ground level,” said Ahmed.
Member of Legislative Council from ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi and Chairman of Rythu Bandhu Committee Palla Rajeshwar Reddy told ThePrint that identifying farmers growing cannabis would now be a “continuous exercise”.
“Departments (excise, police) have been directed to send such lists at regular intervals and action will be taken immediately,” he said.
Read also: Manipur government backs firm’s bid to transport, use hemp seeds, flowers and leaves, says report
Rythu Bandhu Scheme, the brainchild of KCR
The Rythu Bandhu scheme, the brainchild of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, is a direct benefit transfer scheme for farmers, which was launched in 2018 ahead of that year’s state assembly elections.
Under this scheme, the government provides financial assistance to only land-owning farmers – especially small and marginal farmers – for the Kharif and Rabi crop seasons under certain conditions. Farmers get Rs 5,000 per acre for every season.
Telangana government cost so far About Rs 50,000 crore on the scheme. As per government records, around 66 lakh farmers are Rythu Bandhu beneficiaries.
“The scheme is applicable irrespective of any cultivation, and proof is not necessary. Earlier the government was issuing Rythu Bandhu for all types of land. However, recently, it has withdrawn the plan for non-cultivated (barren) land,” Robin Zachius, a Hyderabad-based Right to Information (RTI) activist told ThePrint.
An official of the state’s Rythu Bandhu department said on condition of anonymity that it is still not clear how long these 114 farmers were beneficiaries of the scheme: “We just have to go into those details. ,
“Also, for anyone to avail the benefits of Rythu Bandhu, they only have to show the proof of agricultural land they have owned, what kind of crops they are growing, it is not mandatory. So it could also be that how these farmers were getting benefited from this scheme,” he said.
Government may make it mandatory for farmers to disclose what they are growing
Another official of the state agriculture department said on condition of anonymity that the state government is considering making it mandatory for farmers to disclose which crop they are cultivating. rythu brothers Beneficiary. But these discussions are still in the early stages, he said.
“This is the first time that beneficiaries have been removed from the list. The department is considering this since last year, several rounds of meetings have also been held. The first list was sent to us in March (January 2021 to January 2022). Another updated list was sent to us in May which had 114 farmers. District collectors had also written to us highlighting the issue,” said the official.
Kiran Visa, co-founder of Rythu Swarajya Vedika, a farmers’ organization working with small and medium-scale farmers in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, believed that cannabis cultivation is not large-scale, and too scattered.
“During our field tour we found two such cases in Mahbubnagar district. in a case, (cannabis) The plants were found only in the ridges of the fields, not inside, and the farmer claimed that he had no idea how those plants came to his ridge. In another case the farmer was planting three such saplings in his house. So there is no comprehensive reason why they are doing farming, nor can do This It can be said that it is massive at the moment,” Visa told ThePrint.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)