Legal opium production in India

Legal cultivation of opium for medicinal purposes is carried out in India, only in selected areas, under free licensing conditions. Legal cultivation for medical use is permissible within the ambit of United Nations, Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961.

Background

Each year the Central Government notifies the selected tracts where such cultivation will be permitted, and the general conditions for eligibility of the licence. The essential condition for issue of licence is, fulfillment of minimum qualifying yield (MQY) criterion, specified in number of kilogrammes per hectare. Cultivators who have tendered at least this quantity in the previous year are eligible for licence. The licence among other conditions, specifies the maximum area in which the opium crop can be sown. The crop year starts from 1 September and ends on 30 October each year. Some place where opium is grown are Chittourgarh in Rajasthan; Mandsaur, Ratlam, Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh; and Barabanki, Bareilly, Lucknow & Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh. For the crop year 2008-09, total number of licences issued was 44821, while MQY was fixed at 56 kg/ha for Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and 49 kg/ha for Uttar Pradesh.^[1] Central Bureau of Narcotics (CBN),is responsible for overall supervision of cultivation as per provisions of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (India), 1985 and Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Rules (India), 1985.Officers of CBN measure each field and exercise controls to ensure that no excess cultivation takes place.

The extraction of opium takes place during the months of February and March. Farmers still use the traditional method where they lance each poppy capsule manually with a special blade like tool, a process known as lancing. The lancing is done in late afternoon or evenings. The opium latex which oozes out and congeals in the night is scraped and collected manually the next morning. Each poppy capsule is given three to four lancings. All such opium collected is required to be necessarily tendered to the government, at specially set up opium collection centres, in early April. Opium is checked for quality and consistency and weighed at the centres. Prices are paid which are fixed by the Government in slab rates, depending on the quality and quantity of opium tendered. 90% of payment is made to the cultivators, directly in their bank account through e-payment method. Final payment is made after laboratory testing at opium factory after confirming that no adulterants have been found.^[2] All the opium procured is sent to Government Opium and Alkaloid Factories situated at Neemuch and Ghazipur. Opium is dried and processed at these factories for export and is also used for extraction of various products like Codeine phosphate, Thebaine, Morphine sulphate, Noscapine etc.^[3]

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