STF’s first challenge: Bumper opium crop in R’sthan, MP

Chandigarh : A bumper opium crop in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh is set to pose a big challenge for the Congress government in the state, which has promised to end the drug menace in four weeks. A special task force (STF) headed by ADGP Harpreet Sidhu was recently formed by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to root out drugs from the state. It is after a gap of two years that these two states have witnessed a bumper opium crop. Its harvesting begins in the first week of April. Peddlers use every means to smuggle drugs into Punjab.A police officer said: “The drive against drugs during the Akali-BJP regime was helped by a low yield of opium in these two states. The price of opium has fallen drastically owing to high yield this year. To make more money, peddlers will make more attempts to smuggle the narcotic into Punjab.” Officials at the Narcotics Control Bureau of India, which has an office in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, have confirmed the reports of a bumper crop.
Kaustubh Sharma, Director, NCB, Chandigarh zone, which checks drug smuggling in north India, said: “We have reports that the price of good quality opium has fallen to Rs 50,000 per kg from Rs 1.25 lakh last year.” He said the Jodhpur branch had been keeping tabs on the smugglers. It recently seized 32 kg of opium.Sources said the STF had devised a four-phase plan to check drugs and the top priority was to check the flow of intoxicants from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh where it was grown legally.