MAMIT (MIZORAM)
Manning a “check-gate” at Zamuang on northern Mizoram’s border with Assam for 12 hours in turns takes some quality time away from their areca nut plantations for Biakdika and four others. It is a small price to pay, they say, in the battle to protect their livelihoods from a threat smuggled in through the State’s southern and south-eastern border with Myanmar – dried areca nuts from Southeast Asia.
The gate set up by the Hachhek Areca Nut Farmers’ Association (HANFA) to ensure no vehicle carrying smuggled dried areca nut to Assam and elsewhere in India is also a message for whichever party forms the government in Mizoram after the November 7 elections: set up similar checkpoints along the 510-km Mizoram-Myanmar border to not let dried areca nuts enter the country illegally.
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Zamuang is about 50 km from Mamit, the headquarters of northern Mizoram’s Mamit district. Members of the HANFA, in coordination with the local authorities, have set up another such “check-gate” at Tuidam on the State’s border with Tripura, about 30 km away.
“Dried areca nuts, which attract 100% import duty the legal way, have been smuggled in from Myanmar over the past few years but areca nut farmers in Mizoram started feeling the pinch when the Assam government imposed restrictions on the entry of areca nuts about two years ago to protect its farmers,” HANFA secretary Kanan Lalhlimawma told The Hindu.
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A section of residents in border districts such as Champhai and Lawngtlai, allegedly in collusion with officials and security personnel, have been bringing in the dried areca nuts that are bought by unscrupulous traders at a much cheaper rate than the local produce, the HANFA said.
“In 2022, we sold a 50-60 kg bag of fresh areca nuts for ₹2,500-2800. The rate is down to ₹1,085 per bag today, which is ruining the lives of some 13,000 farmers in Mamit and Kolasib districts [northern Mizoram],” Mr. Lalhlimawma said.
The farmers, a sizeable chunk of voters in these two districts, want their representatives to check the smuggling of dried areca nuts so that their produce fetches a decent price.
Cracking down
Areca nut was one of nine horticulture crops the erstwhile Congress government had promoted through its New Land Use Policy in 2011-12. In two phases, 5,317 families were provided with financial assistance of ₹28.81 crore.
The Mizo National Front (MNF) continued with the horticulture mission after forming the government in 2018 but on a lesser scale. The party’s term allegedly coincided with a surge in the smuggling of dried areca nuts with the Centre writing to the Mizoram and Manipur governments in 2019 to stop the illegal cross-border trade.
According to the data available with the Central Customs Department, more than 2,190 metric tonnes of smuggled areca nuts worth about ₹70 crore were seized in 2020 and 2021. The smuggling issue stoked a political storm after areca nut farmers in Mamit district set fire to six trucks carrying dried areca nuts in December 2022.
As Congress and the regional Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) accused the State government of aiding smuggling at the cost of the livelihoods of local farmers, the MNF claimed it was cracking down on the illegal network. “We worked out a mechanism with the Assam government for sifting the smuggled stuff from the local products after our farmers lost ₹30 crore in 2022,” Robert Romawia Royte, Mizoram’s Information Minister and the MNF’s candidate from Hachhek, said. Smugglers often hide the dried smuggled nuts under the fresh local nuts.
Hachhek is one of three constituencies in Mamit district. The other two are Dampa associated with a tiger reserve and Mamit.
The BJP is banking on the “cooperation” of the party’s MLAs in adjoining areas of Assam to earn the support of areca nut farmers in Mamit and Kolasib districts. The party has fielded candidates in all six constituencies in these two districts.
“We are helping Mizoram’s areca nut farmers by providing them with special passes for transporting their produce,” Krishnendu Paul, the BJP’s Patharkandi (Assam) MLA said.
“We do not understand politics much. What we want is a government that will spare us the trouble of manning check-gates, which is the duty of security forces, and letting our vehicles offload our produce in Assam markets all days of the week, not only on Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays as is the case now,” Mr. Lalhlimawma said.
