Statesman News Service
MALDA, Feb. 29: The north Dinajpur administration h-as decided to expedite the state excise department to take necessary action and deploy more informers in order to get information regarding the cultivation of opium. The decision came following the destruction of Poppy cultivation in Gulandar under Itahar police station on Wednesday.“People here are secretly indulging in the cultivation of opium not only in Gulandar but also in other places to earn more. Some people investing money in this business have been influen-cing a section of farmers to cultivate opium.“People engage in this job due to lack of awareness and we cannot stop them from this practice as we cannot suggest an alternative profitable crop for cultivation,” Mr Sukumar Bhattachar-ya, the district magistrate, north Dinajpur said.According to the DM, people cultivate opium in .07 per cent area of total cultivated areas.It may be noted that the excise department had faced a lot of problem to de-stroy poppy cultivation at Gulandar due to protest. The matter came to light when the cultivators prevented the government officials from destroying the crop. Earlier the excise department had destroyed such cultivations secretly but failed to check the trend of such cultivation.“We cannot go to remote villages and also cannot identify the opium plant to take action against cultivators,” the DM said.
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