India's first industrial hemp start-up Bombay Hemp Company (BOHECO), is run by seven twenty-year-olds, who dream of a green world. Hemp, hardly recognised in India, as it is confused with marijuana, is touted to be a billion-dollar industry in the West. Hemp is hardly consumed in India, unlike a small town in Australia that runs entirely on hemp. Locals in north India use it in their food and to make fibres, but that's about it. Sanvar Oberoi, one of the co-founders says, the Textile Ministry claims that industrial hemp fibre can rake in a potential revenue of approximately Rs 240 crore annually.
Several hemp-based products can be found at BOHECO’s office such as a couple of cream canvas hemp shoes that are still in the works, a neatly packaged crisp, white hemp shirt ready for shipment, bottles of hemp seed oil sit beside packets of hemp seeds, etc.
Romesh Bhattacharji, former narcotics commissioner of India and an advisor to BOHECO explained that hemp is created from the stalk and seed and is a non-narcotic and non-excisable duty item, not from the bud and leaf, which are used to make psychotropic substances. Suman Sahai, founder of the Gene Campaign and an advisor to BOHECO says that the long-term solution for integrating hemp is through development of Indian seeds. The first licence to develop hemp seeds in India in partnership with a government entity is bagged by BOHECO. Kotak stated that they would want to have their own seeds by 2017.
