Nepal to take new measures to fight opium crops (News Feature)

By Pratibha Tuladhar Sep 28, 2010, 9:57 GMT

Kathmandu - Nepalese authorities are stepping up measures against increasing opium cultivation as the poppy-planting season gets under way, police and officials said Tuesday.

Opium and cannabis cultivation has been expanding in Nepal's southern plains region, fuelled by demand from cross the porous border with India, assisted by increasing protection from drug traffickers, police said.

'The demand for growth is high in the area because of Indian buyers from across the border,' said Ganesh Raj Rai, head of the police Narcotics Drug Control Law Enforcement Unit.

In the Bara district in the centre of the southern Terai plains, where the authorities have known of opium farmers for years, are an estimated 340 hectares of poppy crops.

However, cultivation expanded to the eastern plains region in the past two years, according to the Home Ministry and the police, although precise figures were not available.

Under international pressure, Kathmandu has said it will take new measures.

The end of the monsoon season in September brings the cooler temperatures and dry soil that the poppy seeds need for germination, and authorities have said they will nip the problem in the bud with new eradication programmes.

'We have instructed the district administrations concerned to destroy the cultivation during the seed-sowing state, which is now beginning,' said Janak Dahal, under-secretary at the Drug Control Section of the Home Ministry.

In the past the police destroyed the growing crops, which the ministry has now decided was too 'labour-intensive,' he said.

'The process of destruction will be more effective this year,' Rai confirmed. 'We have started destroying the seeds by tracking those involved in the illegal business.'

Kathmandu has been criticized for not clamping down on the recent expansion of drug crops in Nepal. The country's laws technically tolerate the cultivation of both opium poppies and cannabis to a maximum of 20 plants per person and for medicinal use only.

After a recent inspection of the plains districts, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said that Kathmandu needs to show 'through political commitment to curbing the escalating cultivation of opium.'

Poppy cultivation is lucrative for the farmers of poor and remote areas, with the resin collected from the capsules selling for 50,000 Nepalese rupees (around 670 US dollars) per kilogram, and poppy straw for around 1,000 rupees per kilogram.

Poppy straw consists of mature poppy plants which are harvested and used for the production of morphine and heroin.

With poppy a major local source of revenue, the police have been turning a blind eye to its cultivation in return for payments of 1,000 rupees per kattha - a Nepalese unit approximately one-30th of a hectare - of crop, local reports said.

The farmers also enjoy the protection of local armed groups and traffickers, making the region hard to access for the authorities.

'The strong presence of armed outfits in the region where the illegal plantations are done make it difficult for police and journalists to access the area,' said freelance journalist Upendra Thakur, who covers crime in Bara district.