1893-99 (but excepting 1895-96), or from which Government water could not be excluded, should be classed as wet. The next question was what water-rate should be imposed on the remaining delta fields when they were irrigated. In the case of this land the option of using or refusing the water was continued, and, in consideration of this concession, the water-rate was fixed at one rupee per acre more than the difference between the wet and dry assessment. No land was classed as permanent double-crop land. The charge for a second crop on wet land was fixed at half the wet assessment, and specific rules were made for the charges for irrigated dry crops and second wet crops on dry land.
The levy of water-rate in zamindari and inam land occasioned some discussion. A ruling of the High Court had raised a doubt as to the right of Government to levy the rate on land of these two classes from which water could not be excluded, and this had to be removed by legislation (Act V of 1900); and the rate was eventually fixed at the old uniform figure of Rs. 5 per acre.
Besides reassessing the areas dealt with at the former settlement, the existing settlement assessed to revenue many villages which either did not then belong to Government or had been left out of account owing to their jungly nature. Some 41 proprietary villages had been resumed by Government1[1] since the original settlement, and many jungle villages had so far advanced in civilization as to justify their assessment. The large areas of waste land in the surveyed villages of the upland taluks, which at the original settlement had been left unassessed on the ground that they were not likely to be brought under cultivation within a reasonable period, were now brought into line with the fields adjoining them.
On the whole, then, 320,000 acres which had been settled in 1866 and assessed at Rs. 11,38,000 were charged Rs. 18,36,000 in the new settlement of 1900; 19,000 acres which had come newly under cultivation between the two settlements, and had been provisionally assessed at Rs. l6,000, were now charged Rs. 23,000; and some 42,000 acres were assessed for the first time in 1900 at Rs. 34,000.
The existing taluk of Bhadráchalam beyond the Ghats became British territory in 1i860, and till 1874 was administered as part of the Upper Gódávari district of the Central Provinces. It is made up of the old Bhadráchalam and Rékapalle taluks. In 1874 it was decided, in view of its racial and geographical affinities to the Gódávari district of
- ↑ 1 Thirty -seven villages of the Totapalli estate in 1881 and four of the Rampa estate in 1882.
