Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 10 (2nd edition).pdf/517

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OUDII. 505 proprietors who have been unable to prove their right to the sub-settlement of a whole village, called sír, daswant, rinkán, and dihdiri ; (3) groves covering 85,000 acres held by cultivators who by immenorial custom give the landlord a certain share of the produce; (4) lands granted, either by sale or as gifts for religious endowment, with full under-proprietary rights; (5) lands covering 240,000 acres held rentfree by village servants and officials. The number of tenants ejected by process of law from their holdings in 1883 was 12,203. According to another principle of classification, the total assessed area of the Province (23,239 square miles) is divided as follows with reference to the duration of the Settlement:- (1) Area settled in perpetuity, aggregating 1908 square miles, with an annual revenue of £87,487, or an average of £45, 175. from each square mile. The greater portion of this area represents large estates, which were conferred upon loyal tálukdirs after the Mutiny at easy rates. (2) Aren settled for a term of thirty years, expiring at latest in 1908, aggregating 21,185 square iniles, with a revenue of £1,360,736, or £64, 45. 6d. from each square mile. (3) 40 square miles, with a revenue of £513, settled for periods between ten years and thirty. (4) 21 square miles, with a revenue of £398, settled for less than ten years. (5) 85 square miles, still under Settlement in 1883–84. The following is a brief description of the mode of conducting the Survey and Settlement, two connected operations which have everywhere gone on side by side. Two European officials are required—the Revenue Surveyor and the Settlement Officer—each with a numerous staff of native subordinates. The former measures the area of every village, and prepares two sets of naps, one on the scale of an inch to the mile, the other on the scale of four inches to the mile. These maps show the superficial marks of cultivated land, waste land, groves, roads, houses, and tanks. The Settlement Officer superintends the khasrı or field survey, the unit of measurement being the bigha of Shah Jahán, equivalent to 3025 square yards. His special task is to consider the character of the soil, the inethods of cultivation, the facility for irrigation, the means of communication in the present and in the probable future, the current rates of rent, the liability to natural calamities, etc. Then he assesses the revenue on each village, the guiding principle being to demand one-half of the gross rental. The registers he compiles include a record of all local rights and customs affecting inheritance, irrigation, fisheries, groves, and the appointment of village officers. These elaborate operations have been now practically concluded for the whole of Oudh. According to the agricultural statistics for 1876–77, the total assessed area of the Province was 14,885,635 acres, or 23,256 square miles; the total assessment was £1,448,404, at an average rate of is. 11 d.