Deputy to Afghanistan's Interior Ministry General Mohammad Daud has announced western Herat province as poppy-free region, a local newspaper reports Monday. "During a visit to Herat province very recently, Mohammad Daud said the people of Herat had refused to plant poppy and now this province is poppy-free," Daily Outlook reported.
It also said Interior Ministry, in effort to encourage more provinces to follow Herat's step, allocated 1 million U.S. dollars as a "good performance award" to the province for carrying out development projects, Xinhua reported.
So far, 18 out of the country's 34 provinces have been recognized as poppy-free and the government, according to officials, is endeavoring to eradicate poppy in three to five more provinces within a few years.
Afghanistan, with an annual output of 8,200 tons of opium poppy, had topped poppy-growing nations in supplying raw material used in manufacturing heroin in the world.