CHAPTER XI.
LAND REVENUE ADMINISTRATION.
Early History—The zamindars—Their administration— The havili land—Committee of Circuit, 1785-87 — Settlement with the zamindars in 1789—Abolition of the Chiefs and Councils, 1794— Collectors of the havili land. The Permanent Settlement, 1802-03—Its failure—Its effect on the ryots—Special Commissioner appointed, 1843. Ryotwari Settlements—Before 1865—Settlement of 1865-66—Its scope—Grouping of villages—Classification of soils— Standard crops, grain outturns, commutation prices—Cultivation expenses and money rates—Financial results—Water-rate in the delta—The existing settlement; its scope—Reclassification of delta soils —Water-rate problems—Settlement of wild tracts—Financial results— Bhadráchalam taluk—Proprietary rights—Fixing of the peshkash— Settlement of 1890 in Bhadráchalam—Agency tracts and rented villages. District and Divisional Limits. Village Establishment—Re-organized in 1866—Revised in 1885. Inams.
As has already been mentioned on p. 34 above, the district, when it was at length definitely acquired in 1768, was not at once administered directly by the Company but was leased out to native renters called zamindars, over whom was a head renter named Hussain Ali Khán. The latter's lease expired in 1769 and the newly-acquired territory was then placed under the direct administration of the servants of the Company. The agents of the old factories and their subordinates were converted into Provincial Chiefs and Councils, and the Rajahmundry and Ellore Circars were put under the Chief and Council of Masulipatam, who for the next 25 years controlled the entire political, civil and revenue administration. They found that the land of the district was of two classes; namely, the havili ('havelly') land, which consisted of house-hold estates, situated round the chief towns, which had been appropriated by the Musalmans to the upkeep of their numerous garrisons and establishments and administered directly by them; and the zamindari land, the collection of the revenue in which was leased out on a commission to zamindars.
These zamindars, in theory, were merely agents of the Musalmans, 1[1] created for the sole purpose of collecting the
- ↑ 1 See Higginbotham's reprint (Madras, 1883) of the Fifth Report on the affairs of the East India Company (1812) and Mr. Grant's Political Survey of the Northern Circars appended thereto, both of which have been freely utilized in the following pages.
