Angul
More actions
| Angul | |
|---|---|
| ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Gene Pool | South Asian Gene Pool |
| Growing Region | Garhjat |
| Geography | |
| Country | India |
| Province/State | Odisha |
| District | Angul District |
| Coordinates | 20.99, 84.90 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 6,400 km² |
| Terrain | Approximately Angul District |
| Climate | |
| Seasons | Planted in July and harvested from late November (Handapa, 2020) |
| Growing history | |
| Earlier names | Angul State; the Angul tract |
| Dated news reports | 2020 |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Angul is a landrace cannabis growing area in the Garhjat growing region of Odisha, India, mapped on Angul District. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission quoted a report by the Commissioner of 1,000 consumers of ganja "in the Angul State alone", all of whom grew it and sold only what they did not need themselves.[1] An audit of Odisha's excise administration found cannabis cultivation continuing in Angul from 2014–15 to 2016–17.[2] In the 2017–18 crop year the police destroyed the crop on 851 acres of the district.[3]
In the 1890s
Narayan Chandra Naik, Khas Tahsildar of Angul since 1882, told the Commission that the plant grew on homestead land, never more than two, three or four plants together. He found it in perhaps a third of the villages and there only in certain houses; he had never seen it wild in the jungles or grown in fields.[4] Rai Nandakisore Das, the District Officer of Angul, had travelled in the Tributary Mahals for fifteen years. He had nowhere seen more than twenty plants at one place; generally there were four or five, grown chiefly for bhang and to a small extent for ganja.[5]
Naik said that Angul and the neighbouring States prepared enough ganja for their own smokers and exported little. Most people relied on their own plants, but in the season ganja was brought regularly to the bazaars and markets in small bundles. Angul had no excise administration for ganja: no shops and no rules.[4]
A prohibition of ganja cultivation had been ordered in Mr Metcalfe's time for the Angul tract and for the neighbouring States then under Government management, seven or eight years before Naik gave evidence. The plants disappeared. People got their ganja from the neighbouring States of the Central Provinces instead. Three or four years before his evidence the prohibition was repealed, the plants began to reappear and, in Naik's words, "cultivation is greatly increasing these last two years".[4] Metcalfe had been Commissioner of the Orissa Division before H. G. Cooke.[6]: 20
Mohendra Deo, the Maharaja of Athmallik, one of the Orissa Tributary States, told the Commission in 1895 that the hemp plant was not cultivated in his State, but that "those who are in the habit of using these hemp drugs grow four or five plants in their respective fields". Its cultivation for ganja was not restricted there.[7]
Since 2000
Angul was one of eight Odisha districts in which an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India found cannabis cultivation continuing from 2014–15 to 2016–17.[2] In January 2018 the Director General of Police, R. P. Sharma, said that in the 2017–18 crop year the police had destroyed cannabis on 851 acres in Angul against a target of 200 acres. In the same statement he reported "a sharp decline" in cultivation in Angul, Sambalpur, Deogarh and Nayagarh, which he credited to constant destruction and awareness drives.[3]
In November 2020 OrissaPOST reported from the villages under the Handapa and Thakurgarh police stations, among them Kholaregeda, Mamurijharan and Laxmipur. According to local residents, farmers there had grown cannabis for several years on forest land that was hard to reach. Traders from other states paid advances into the farmers' bank accounts. The crop had been planted in July and was due to be harvested within days; farmers were guarding it from tents pitched nearby. Handapa police had destroyed about 40,000 plants in the Kholaregeda forest on 18 November.[8]
The same report gave the number of plants destroyed under the two police stations each year: 5,210,000 in 2014, 5,920,700 in 2015, 6,030,000 in 2016, 3,940,000 in 2017, 4,130,600 in 2018 and 2,832,400 in 2019. A local social activist told the paper that cultivation in the area was decreasing but had still to be rooted out. The sub-collector of Athmallik said that police, excise and forest officials would be asked to identify the plots and register cases against the growers.[8]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
| Article | Date | Category |
|---|---|---|
| News:2020-11-18/Eradication/handapa-police-destroy-about-40-000-ganja-plants-in-kholaregeda-forest-in-angul | Eradication |
See also
References
- ↑ 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. 96–100, pp. 37–39 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Comptroller and Auditor General of India (2018). "Chapter III: State Excise". Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Revenue Sector for the year ended March 2017, Government of Odisha (Report). Comptroller and Auditor General of India. para. 3.4.9, p. 33. Report No. 4 of 2017.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Post News Network (21 January 2018). "Record cannabis crops destroyed". OrissaPOST. Retrieved 20 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Babu Narayan Chandra Naik, Khas Tahsildar and Deputy Collector, Angul". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Bengal witness no. 73, pp. 209–210 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Rai Nandakisore Das, Bahadur, District Officer of Angul, Cuttack". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Bengal witness no. 34, pp. 82–84 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1894). "Evidence of Mr. H. G. Cooke, Officiating Commissioner, Orissa Division". Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, 1893–94. Vol. IV: Evidence of Witnesses from Bengal and Assam. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. Bengal witness no. 8, pp. 18–22 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Indian Hemp Drugs Commission (1895). "Evidence of Mohendra Deo, Maharaja of Atmalik, Tributary Mehals, Orissa". Supplementary Volume: Evidence of Witnesses from Native States. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. witness no. 3, p. 133 – via Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Post News Network (26 November 2020). "Angul: Police, forest, excise officials fail to curb increasing ganja menace". OrissaPOST. Retrieved 20 October 2026.