Deccan
More actions
| Deccan | |
|---|---|
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| |
| The Sahyadri hills in the monsoon from Sinhgad, near Pune | |
| Location | |
| Coordinates | 19.21, 74.63 |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Country | India |
| Provinces/States | Maharashtra |
| Area | 107,000 km² |
| Growing history | |
| Earlier names | Deccan, or Central Division, of the Bombay Presidency |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Deccan is a landrace cannabis growing region in Maharashtra, India. It is mapped on nine present-day districts, Nandurbar, Dhule, Jalgaon, Nashik, Ahilyanagar, Pune, Solapur, Satara and Sangli, which between them cover the six Deccan districts of the Bombay Presidency in the 1890s. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission reported in 1894 that, apart from about twelve acres grown for bhang in Surat and Broach, the presidency's whole cultivation of hemp was "practically confined to the Deccan or Central Division".[1] Most of the crop was grown in two districts, Ahmednagar and Satara, and from 1901 the licensed crop was confined to them.[2] Since 2025 central and district agencies have destroyed or seized cannabis growing in fields in Dhule and Nandurbar districts.[3][4]
Geography
In the 1890s the Bombay Presidency's Central Division took in the districts of Khandesh and Nasik in the north and Ahmednagar, Poona, Sholapur and Satara in the south. The Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari, T. D. Mackenzie, gave a list of the districts where hemp was grown in which these six are the districts "in the Deccan"; the others are Bijapur, in the Southern Maratha Country, and Broach and Surat, in Gujarat.[5]: 89 Because the crop was grown almost entirely in districts of moderate to scanty rainfall, Mackenzie inferred that the wet districts of the Konkan and Kanara were unsuited to the crop.[5]: 89
Khandesh is now divided between Nandurbar, Dhule and Jalgaon districts. The old Satara district's Khanapur, Tasgaon and Walwa talukas were grouped after 1948 into the new district of South Satara, now Sangli District.[6]: 546
Cultivation history
The Deccan in the 1890s
The Commission's figures for the eight years to 1892–93 show Ahmednagar's area under hemp falling from 1,030 acres to 382 and Satara's from 411 to 299. Khandesh, Nasik, Poona and Sholapur grew much smaller areas. Khandesh had grown 311 acres in 1885–86 but only 9 and 10 in the last two years, a fall the Commission thought the excise system of the neighbouring Central Provinces had probably caused. In 1888–89 the area fell sharply in the four adjoining districts in the south of the Central Division but not in Nasik and Khandesh to the north, and the Commission thought an unfavourable season the probable cause.[1] Mackenzie's table gave Ahmednagar an average of 660 acres over ten years and Satara 335 over thirteen.[5]: 89
In the Commission's account the cultivation was almost wholly confined to the Central Division and to a few native states in the Deccan and the Southern Maratha Country, and followed one method throughout that tract. The seed generally preferred in the tract was the seed from Ahmednagar.[7] The ganja of the Satara district was grown mainly in the Khanapur taluka and at the village of Lengri, or Lengre,[8]: 119 and the neighbouring states took the crop from there. Balkrishna Narayan Vaidya, the karbhari of the Sangli State, told the Commission that its villages had begun growing hemp after seeing the villagers of Lengre "derive large profits therefrom".[9]: 98 The growers of the Jath State fetched their seed from the Khanapur taluka, whose own growers brought theirs from Ahmednagar.[10]: 68
Licensed cultivation, 1901–1940
From 1 August 1901, under the Bombay Act V of 1901, the cultivation of hemp for ganja in the presidency proper was confined to the Ahmednagar and Satara districts and carried on under licence, with the crop stored in warehouses near the places where the ganja was made.[2] The Excise Department later narrowed the cultivation further. The report for 1916–17 announced that the cultivation at Lengre had been abolished and that the Nagar taluka of Ahmednagar would in future be the only area in the presidency where hemp was grown.[11] By 1939–40 the licensed crop was grown in the single village of Mehekari, on 75 acres.[12]
Since 2000
In April 2025 the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence found cannabis grown on seven plots, 9.493 acres in all, in the villages of Khamkheda Ambe and Rohini in Dhule district, in a remote area on the Madhya Pradesh border. The plots were watered by drip irrigation; the officers uprooted 96,049 plants and seized 420 kg of dried ganja found in sacks on the fields.[3] In October 2026 the Directorate and the Central Bureau of Narcotics destroyed cannabis on five stretches of land, 7.08 acres in all, in a densely forested part of a wildlife sanctuary near Jamniapani village, in the Shirpur area of Dhule district.[13]
In Nandurbar district the Local Crime Branch reported cannabis plants growing in the fields of two men at Ghatli, in Dhadgaon taluka, in September 2026,[4] and plants grown among a sorghum crop at Modarapada Hunakhamb, in Akkalkuwa taluka, the following month.[14]
Growing Areas
| Growing Area | Status | State |
|---|---|---|
| Ahmednagar | Historical | Maharashtra |
| Satara | No longer grown | Maharashtra |
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
No news items are recorded for this growing region yet.
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. IV, "Extent of cultivation, and its tendency to increase or decrease", paras. 125–127, pp. 48–49 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Excise Department, Bombay (1904). Report on the Administration of Excise Department (Abkari and Opium) in the Bombay Presidency, Sind, and Aden for the Financial Year 1903–1904 (Report). Bombay: Government Central Press – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Sharma, Somendra (2 April 2025). "DRI Mumbai, Along With Regional Units, Destroys 9.49 Acres Of Illegally Cultivated Cannabis In Dhule". Free Press Journal. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Nandurbar: LCB seizes 443 kg wet cannabis worth Rs 2.21 crore in Dhadgaon raid". United News of India. 8 September 2026. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Memorandum on hemp drugs in Bombay, by the Hon'ble T. D. Mackenzie, Commissioner of Customs, Salt, Opium and Abkari". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. III: Appendices, Miscellaneous. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. pp. 88–102 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Maharashtra State Gazetteers: Satara District. Bombay: Directorate of Government Printing, Stationery and Publications, Maharashtra State. 1963 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. I: Report. Simla: Government Central Printing Office. ch. V, "Methods of cultivation and matters connected therewith", paras. 196–199, pp. 74–78 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. J. E. Down, District Superintendent of Police, Satara". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. VII: Evidence of Witnesses from Bombay, Sind, Berar, Ajmere, Coorg, Baluchistan, and Burma. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Bombay witness no. 55, pp. 119–120 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Balkrishna Narayan Vaidya, Parbhu, State Karbhari of Sangli". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. VII: Evidence of Witnesses from Bombay, Sind, Berar, Ajmere, Coorg, Baluchistan, and Burma. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Bombay witness no. 46, pp. 98–100 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Rao Bahadur Ramchandra Rajaram Mulé, Deshastha Brahmin, Administrator of Jath, in Southern Mahratta Country". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. VII: Evidence of Witnesses from Bombay, Sind, Berar, Ajmere, Coorg, Baluchistan, and Burma. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. pp. 67–68 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Excise Department, Bombay. Report on the Administration of the Excise Department in the Bombay Presidency, Sind, and Aden for the Year 1916–1917 (Report). Bombay: Government Central Press. para. 41 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Excise Department, Bombay (1941). Report on the Administration of the Excise Department in the Province of Bombay for the Year 1939–40 (Report). Bombay: Government Central Press. para. 33 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Staff Reporter (16 October 2026). "Indore DRI, CBN Destroy 2.86 Hectares Cannabis Crop In Maharashtra Wildlife Sanctuary". Free Press Journal. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ "Maha: LCB seizes cannabis worth RsRs 28.58 lakh from sorghum field in Nandurbar, 1 detained". United News of India. 13 October 2026. Retrieved 29 October 2026.