Ballia Ghazipur Opium Factory Rose Water Distillery Eastern UP

Ghazipur district is the site of the Government Opium and Alkaloid Works — one of the world's oldest state opium factories (established 1820) that processes licensed poppy from UP, MP, and Rajasthan into morphine, codeine, and other medicinal alkaloids for India's pharmaceutical industry and export. Ghazipur is also famous for its rose (gulab) cultivation in the Gulab-e-Ghazi microclimate near Ghazipur town — rose petals are distilled into rose water (gulab jal) and rose attar in small distilleries. Ballia district (adjacent) is famous as the birthplace of Mangal Pandey, the sepoy who fired the first shot of the 1857 Mutiny, and for the Ballia rebellion (August 1942) during the Quit India Movement.