CHAPTER XII.
SALT, ABKARI AND MISCELLANEOUS REVENUE.
Salt — The existing factories — The supply produced — The Oriental Salt Company — Earth-salt — Fish-curing yards. ABKÁRI AND OPIUM — Abkari in the Agency — Toddy — Spirit — Abkári in the ordinary tracts; arrack — Toddy — Opium — Hemp-drugs. Customs — Sea-customs — Land-customs. Income-tax. Stamps.
BEFORE the permanent settlement was carried out in 1802, the Company owned certain salt pans in the havíli lands and the zamindars had others within their properties. Regulation XXV of 1802 excluded from the assets of the zamindaris all profits on the manufacture of salt, and Regulation I of 1805 established the Government monopoly in that article which still subsists.
The existing salt-factories (going down the coast from north to south) are Kuppili, Kónáda, Bimlipatam, Karása, Bálacheruvu and Pólavaram. Of these, the two last and the part of Karása called 'the Karása extension ' are monopoly factories; that is, the pans in them are worked by license-holders who are required to hand over to Government, on receipt of a stated rate per garce called the kudiváram, all the salt they make. The rates of thiskudiváram are so calculated as to make it cover all the expenses of manufacture and leave a reasonable profit besides. They are not often altered, but may be varied to meet changes in the cost of manufacture, such as a rise or fall in the general rate of wages.
The license-holders, as elsewhere, are each required to manufacture a stated quantity of salt known as thedittam, which is fixed at the beginning of the season by the Salt, Abkári and Customs department after consideration of the stocks in hand and other local circumstances. Failure to manufacture this diitam may be visited with the penalties in section 25 of the Salt Act, which include fines and the suspension or cancellation of the license, but the more severe of these punishments are very rarely inflicted.
The other factories are excise factories; that is, those who hold licenses to make salt in them are allowed, subject to certain restrictions, to make any quantity they choose and dispose of it how and when they like after they have paid to Government the
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