The government has decided to offer around 43% more areas for opium farming to those eligible cultivators who have managed to improve yield significantly, as it eyes higher output without increasing the acreage.
According to a finance ministry notification, eligible farmers who achieved average yield of 60 kg per hectare and above will get 50 hectare to cultivate opium in the crop year that started October 1.
Other eligible cultivators will get the licence for farming in 35 hectare each.
The cultivators, however, can plant opium poppy in a maximum of three plots, it said, adding that excess cultivation in more than 5% of the licensed area won?t be condoned. Cultivators who produced an average yield of 58 kg per hectare in top producing states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and 52 kg a hectare in Uttar Pradesh in 2010-11 will get the licences, according to the notification.
?Cultivators will be permitted to take on lease land belonging to others to make up for the licensed area, if they so desire…. Morphine content of opium tendered during 2011-12 may become the basis for payment for the crop year 2011-12 and eligibility for licence in crop year 2012-12 if the government decides to do so in this regard,? it added. The government regulates the cultivation of opium as it can also be used for manufac- turing heroin apart from several medicines.
However, it opened up opium processing to the private sector three years ago to improve efficiency and raise capacity as only two state-run units?at Neemuch in MP and Ghazipur in UP?are allowed to undertake opium processing under government supervision.