AGRICULTURE AND IRRIGATION

TENURES.

Land Administration in the past.

Yeotmal district was formerly included in the province of Berar. It formed part of the Nizamshahi kingdom of Ahmadnagar till its cession to the Moghals in 1600. It continued under the direct rule of the Moghals till, 1724 when with the establishment of the Hyderabad kingdom it formed its part. Later in 1853 Berar was assigned to the British Government for the payment of certain debts.

The earliest records of land revenue administration in Berar, of which Yeotmal district formed a part, are contained in the Akbarnama of A.D. 1600. Under Akbar's rule all the arable land was measured into bighas and the produce of each bigha was estimated under the system devised by Todar Mal, Akbar's Minister. The assessment was fixed at one-fourth of the gross produce. For fixing the assessment, the quality of land was mainly taken into account. In 1612 Malik Ambar made a fresh settlement. Malik Amber's system was dropped after h s death in 1626 and Todar Mal's system of assessment with occasional partial revisions was again followed. It was Todar Mal who devised the system and it was extended to the southern possessions of the Moghals. Later the revenue administration devised by Todar Mal also came to be entirely disregarded. Under the system of Todar Mal all land was regarded as belonging to the State. [ Central Provinces District Gazetteers, Yeotmal District, Vol. A, 1908, p. 166-167.] This view was held by the later rulers also. During the first three quarters of the nineteenth century a state of confusion in respect of land revenue system prevailed. The patel used to make out lease for each cultivator every year. No one had any right to land except by permission of Government Officials. Seeing that hopeless confusion prevailed during that time it is probable that permission given by one official was often overruled by another or disregarded by sheer violence. The Berar Gazetteer of 1870 says: "A man who had carefully formed and prepared his fields saw them sold to the highest bidder; whole taluks and parganas were let and sublet to speculators for sums far above the ancient standard assessment ". The revenue was then farmed out to either deshmukhs (hereditary pargana officials) or sahukars (money-lenders) who never thought of recognising rights of occupancy.

There were special tenures, such as, palampat, jagir, and inam. All the three kinds of land tenure were held by grant from the Government.

The number of villages held under each kind of tenure in the district was as follows [ Ibid p. 178.]: —

From the above table it can be seen that the most common tenure in the district in the past was the ryotwari tenure which prevailed in Khalsa villages. Khalsa land is land held on ryotwari tenure. Of the total number of villages, viz., 1925, the villages having khalsa tenure were 1845. Next to khalsa tenure izara, a special tenure with 358 villages under it was common in the district, mere was only one village under the special tenure of inam.

The confusion and the uncertainty in the land administration which prevailed prior to the British administration were removed subsequently when the cultivator was given the right to occupy his land permanently. Secondly, the cultivator was allowed either to cultivate land or to leave it fallow, or to sell, to lease or to mortgage it. These provisions however were to some extent suspended alter 1905. Thirdly, it was laid down that the assessment of a held would not be raised on account of improvements made by the cultivator. The obligation was simply that of paying the land revenue for which the field was assessed. Such amount to be paid was absolutely definite. The assessment rates which then prevailed were fixed at Rs. 2:25, 1:87 and 1:50 per bigha, according to whether the land was of the first, second, or third class. A bigha apparently contained a little more than two-thirds of an acre. The land covered with heavy wood in Wun district was given out on exceedingly light terms for the first seven years, and was then assessed according to its quality at Re. 1, As. 12, or As. 8 per bigha, All this was done on the old village books. " There was no provision about the number of years for which the rates fixed would hold good. What was called a settlement was made annually, but it was not a settlement of the more recent kind. No change was made in the rate of assessment, but changes in possession caused by death, sale, or the reclaiming of waste land, were recorded". [ Ibid, p. 170.] The most important defect of this assessment was that the village books on which the assessment was based were very imperfect. Therefore, a regular survey and settlement was made in the district during 1872 and 1877. The system then adopted was similar to that of Bombay as contained in the Dharwadi Kaida.

The original settlements were in Pusad and Darwha tahsils in 1872 and those in Yeotmal, Kelapur, and Wun, in 1874 and 1875. The same were revised in 1900-1901 and 1904-1905.

Old Tenures.

Of the special tenures referred to above izara and jagir tenures were the most important. Izara tenure was drawn up under the title of the "Waste Land Rules of 1865". Its main purpose was to induce the inhabitants of the villages and to bring the hilly; parts largely uninhabited, uncultivated, and often overgrown with trees under cultivation. " According to these rules whole villages were leased out to individuals on a low rental for a term of any period up to thirty years and the lessee was given the option of certain permanent rights at the end of that time. He might either keep the village in perpetuity on payment of one half of a fair assessment, or, provided one-third of the land had been brought under cultivation, he might keep merely the patelki, the right of being or appointing the headman. Inci-dental conditions were made about the appointment of ordinary village officers and the payment of cesses intended to make the organisation ot izara villages uniform with that of khalsa villages, with the exception that when the izardar chose to keep the village permanently all rights and obligations centred in him alone, wnereas they are usually divided among different individuals. Izardars were given full powers to transfer their rights". [ Ibid, pp. 178-79.] Under the system the persons who undertook the proprietary titles were not exempted from payment of rent under any excuse, Failure to pay the full amount would entail attachment or sale of his estate. About 500 villages were leased under these rules. The lessees of 359 villages chose proprietary title and retained the land permanently on payment of half of a fair assessment.

The scheme gave exceedingly good results. Soon it was realised that there was no need to grant such extraordinary permanent rights. This resulted in the cancellation of the rules in 1871. Instead other "Waste Land Rules" were issued in 1876, 1879 and 1880. According to these new provisions the land was to become khalsa after the expiry of the thirty years of the original lease. The land revenue paid on izara villages amounted in 1906-1907 to Rs. 1,48.025. No single izardar held more than eight villages.

Jagir tenure was the second in importance. In 1908, the district had 72 jagir villages. Their total assessment was Rs. 61,116 of which the jagirdars used to pay to Government Rs. 12,054. Generally a jagir was a rent-free holding of one or more whole mauzas (villages). Initially the jagir was a grant made only for military service and for the maintenance, by force of arms, of order in special neighbourhoods. Later on most of these jagirs were surrendered by their holders for some high expectations by the sovereigns who granted such jagirs. The system also broke down as some jagirdars ceased to maintain any real force. In course of time, however, other jagirs than purely military grants were made for various services. Amongst others these jagirs also included such jagirs which were granted to pious or venerable persons, such as, Saiyids, Fakirs, Pirzadas, etc. These were not originally hereditary but later on they became practically hereditary.

The other two tenures were very minor. The palampat tenure was somewhat similar to permanent izara tenure. The palampat villages were generally in the hands of Deshmukhs and Deshpandes, the former pargana officials. Such villages were assessed at Rs. 3,618 of which Rs. 1,906, or a little more than half, was paid to Government. Land was also given on inam, free of assessment, or on a quit-rent, to Kazis, Hindu priest, holy men, village servants and others. Some such conditions such as cleaning and maintaining a temple as also doing any village work were laid down. Sangam, in Pusad tahsil, was the only inams village in the district. Small mams consisting of a few acres were very common.

Existing Tenures.

As in the other districts of Maharashtra, ryotwari is the most common tenure in the district. In fact it was so even prior to the first settlement. Under this system each field is considered a separate holding which the ryot holds directly from the State. The holder or occupant of the field is called the khatedar and the land under this system is known as khalsa. The right of occupany depends on the regular payment of the assessment by the khatedar and in case he tails to do so he forfeits his right in which case the land reverts to the State. The land revenue is fixed on individual survey numbers or sub-divisions thereof, con sidering the quality, average rainfall, location, crops grown, etc. All the proprietary rights in estates, mahals, alienated villages or alienated lands including the old tenures, such as, izara, jagir, palampat and inam have been abolished under the Madhya Pradesh Abolition of Proprietary Rights (Estates, Mahals, Alienated Lands) Act, 1950.

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