Phulbani: The joint forces of excise, police and narcotics departments have intensified their crackdown on ready-to-harvest illegal hemp cultivation in Kandhamal and Angul districts. They have destroyed plants worth Rs 45 crore within a week.

The drive is on a war-footing. The personnel trek along the hilly earthen roads and ferry water-inlets in forested areas almost on a daily basis to demolish plants.

"We destroyed 1.6 lakh hemp plants in Kanaloi forest area in Chendipada police limits on Thursday. The plants would have fetched the traders Rs 1.60 crore. The squad personnel had to trek 14km to reach the targeted spot. They used ropes to cross over small water inlet. The area was inhospitable. Threat of retaliatory attack by mafias always looms large," said the excise superintendent of Angul district, Harish Chandra Sethy.

The department mostly relies on local intelligence to track and destroy the ganja cultivation. Besides satellite imageries data provide us the ganja plants' location, Sethy said.