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REVENUE ADMINISTRATION
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INTRODUCTION
[Yeotmal District Gazetteer, 1908, pp. 166-168.]" THE EARLIEST RECORDS OF LAND-REVENUE ADMINISTRATION IN BERAR are contained in the Akbarnama of A. D. 1600. Akbar made a definite settlement of the land revenue by having all arable land measured into bighas, and an estimate made of the produce of each bigha. The assessment was fixed at one-fourth of the gross produce. In 1612 a further settlement was made-over the greater part of Berar by Malik Ambar, but the details are not clear. The historian Grant Duff says that the assessment was fixed in money by calculating the value of the government share of the produce. Berar tradition, recorded in 1870, was that the assessment was on the quality of the land, at so much per bigha. After Malik Ambar's death Akbar's assessment, with occasional partial revisions, was again followed, but only loosely. Gradually it came to be entirely disregarded. In 1853 some villages paid far less than they would have done under Akbar's system, and some paid for more: and the actual area under cultivation was very different from that shown in the official records. It was held under Akbar that all land belonged to the State. According to traditions collected in Khandesh in 1820, Malik Ambar had confirmed his ryots in formal possession of specific fields and have even considered the village community joint owner of the village lands. This may or may not be true, but the succeeding Mughals, the Nizam, and the Maratha", held Akbar's view that the State was the sole owner of the land. During the eighteenth century, under the do amli or double government of the Nizam and the Marathas, the paid used to make out a lease for each cultivator every year. Under the Nizam's government from 1803 to 1853 the collection of land revenue was made over to Farmers-General, who advanced fixed sums to the government and then extracted as much as they could
from the cultivators. ―――― During the ministry of Raja
Chandu Lal (1820 to 1840) the right to collect land revenue was even sold to different people at the same time. In this district the Deputy Commissioner reported in 1870 that ' Under the Nizam's government the revenue was generally farmed out to either deshmukhs (hereditary pargana officials) or sahukars (moneylenders), who never thought of recognising rights of occupancy. ' This general description applies to almost all the land in Berar, but a little was held under special tenures such as mirasi or mundkari, palampat, jagir and inam. Mirasi or mundkari
tenure is interesting because it apparently did not originate in a grant by the
government but its exact nature is not clear and the tenure does not exist in this district.―――― The land
revenue greatly decreased during these two-and a-half centuries of disorder. Sir A. C. Lyall, after considering the difference in the value of the rupee at both periods concluded that the revenue raised from Berar in the 17th century was far above its yield in 1853. The land revenue demand for the parganas which later formed the Wun district had, according to the ' Ain-i-Akbari' been Rs. 4,40.000. In 1853 it had fallen to Rs. 70,000; and the extraction of even that amount was constantly driving cultivators out of the district. Cultivation decreased to a minimum. "
With the dawn of Independence and the idea of establishing a Welfare State, Government activities and expenditure have increased manifold. It is therefore imperative that sources, other than land revenue, are explored to augment the revenue of the exchequer. Taxes, both Central and State, form the core of Government revenue.
In what follows is described in brief the functioning of those departments which are entrusted with the administration of these taxes.
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