Bhubaneswar: A joint team of excise officials and police night seized 105 grams of brown sugar worth Rs 21 lakh from Christiansahi in Khurda town and arrested one person on Thursday.

The accused, Brundaban Pradhan, claimed he used to supply the contraband to students of educational institutes located on the city outskirts.

The city has become a potential business ground for brown sugar peddlers with several suppliers being arrested by the police and excise sleuths in the recent past. According to official figures, the police have managed to seize only 8.7 grams of brown sugar in Bhubaneswar between 2011 and 2015. While there was no seizure of the contraband between 2011 and 2014, the 8.7 grams was seized in 2015. In contrast, the cops in 2016 seized a staggering 634 grams of brown sugar.

On December 15, excise sleuths had seized brown sugar weighing 102 grams worth Rs 10 lakh and arrested two persons from the Haladi Padia slum in Laxmi Sagar police limits. The slum has become a safe heaven for brown sugar peddlers with more than a dozen people being arrested from there this year so far.

The cops said the root of the peddling racket originates from Balasore and its adjoining areas. "The contraband is mostly smuggled into Odisha from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Bengal. The small-time traders in the slum procure it from Balasore and its adjoining areas and sell it in Bhubaneswar with hefty margins," said a police official.