Page:Gódávari.djvu/197

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LAND REVENUE ADMINISTRATION.
171

of season and unprofitable areas. Commutation prices were calculated from the prices of past years and independent enquiries, and worked out as shown in the margin.* The ultimate grain values were reduced to money in accordance with the commutation prices, and the gross annual money value per acre of each soil was fixed by taking the average of the money equivalents of the grain values of each kind of standard crop. For the special class of land under the Yeléru river the calculations were made on the assumption that sugar-cane would be cultivated once in four years and paddy in the others, the aggregate outturn being estimated for four years and the average for one year taken from this.

Grain Rs. per garce.
White paddy 72
Black paddy 60
Cambu 60
Ragi 66
Horse-gram 96
Cholam 84
Rs. 20 per maund
Tobacco 40
Sugar-cane 15

Deductions were next made for cultivation expenses, the expenses per acre on each class of soil being taken as the average cost of cultivating an acre with each of the standard crops. The result worked out in ordinary cases to between Rs. 5-8-O and Rs. 2 per acre, but in the case of tobacco it came to Rs. 35, and in that of sugar-cane to Rs. 95, per acre. Both the gross and the net value of each 'sort' of soil having thus been ascertained, rates of assessment per acre were framed. The share of Government generally approximated to half the net produce. The rates arrived at were modified in their application to actual fields according to the classification of the villages already referred to, the same soils paying less in villages which were classed low in the scale of fertility. In the end, the eighteen rates for dry land and fourteen for wet shown in the margin * were arrived at. The first three of the former applied only to the exceptional soils in the lankas, etc.

Dry Dry Wet Wet
Rs. A. Rs. A.
20 0 10 0
12 0 8 0
5 0 7 0
4 8 6 8
4 0 6 0
3 8 5 8
3 0 5 0
2 8 4 8
2 4 4 0
2 0 3 8
1 12 3 0
1 8 2 8
1 4 2 4
1 0 2 0
0 12
0 8
0 6
0 4

The result of the settlement was an increase in the revenue demand amounting, on the whole, to four lakhs, or 23 per cent., over the figures of 1859-60, though there was a decrease in the dry upland villages. In the area which at present makes up the district, the approximate increase in the delta land amounted to Rs. 99,000, or 12 per cent., and in the upland