47. Evidence of BABII SARAT CHANDRA DASS, Deputy Magistrate and Deputy Collector, Rajshahi.

Oral evidence.

I am Excise Deputy Collector of Rajshahi. I have been eight years in the district, five years as Subdivisional Officer of Naogaon and three years as Excise Deputy Collector at Rajshahi. I know Chittagong, Tippera and Noakhali also. I was Assistant to the Commissioner in Chittagong and Noakhali and Excise Deputy Collector and Settlement Officer in Tippera. I am a native of Tippera. My experience is confined to the districts I have named.

I have seen the wild hemp plant at the foot of the hills in Tippera, Noakhali and Chittagong, and also in Rajshahi. In places the growth was very dense, but I cannot say it was abundant in any district. The plant dies off completely each year and the seeds fall off and germinate. I do not think the seeds are affected by damp, but I found the plant on high sites near villages where there was no shade, not in alluvial lands. The cultivators are careful to keep their ganja seed dry and say that moisture damages it. I do not think the seed of the cultivated plant is the same as that of the wild plant. The wild plant begins to appear in November and disappears in January. This does not correspond with the period of growth of the cultivated plant.

As Settlement Officer I frequently inspected alluvial and chur lands in Tippera, and never saw the plant in such places. I think therefore there must be some mistake about the information given to the Commission that the plant grows in lands of that kind in the Bhagalpur and other alluvial districts. But I know of no scientific reasons why the plant should not grow in these lands. I have never heard of the plant growing in such lands.

The places in which I saw the plant were near village sites, and I think it had sprung from wild seed, because the leaves of the wild plant differ from those of the cultivated plant in that they are broader.