Vizagapatam/Chapter 12
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 excise duty upon it and a small cess to cover the interest on the capital cost of permanent works carried out by Government to facilitate storage and manufacture.
The salt made at Kuppili and Bimlipatam is lighter than that produced in the other factories, and consequently — since salt is bought by merchants at the factories by weight and sold retail in the bazaars by measure — it fetches a better price. This is especially the case at Kuppili, although the product there gives indifferent results on analysis. The Bálacheruvu salt used to be the best in appearance, consisting of large (but brittle) crystals, but of late the factory has not been regularly worked and the quality has declined. The Karása salt is the worst, both in size and colour. In the old days when large numbers of Brinjári gangs came right down to the coast to fetch salt for Bastar and Raipur, they used to prefer the salt manufactured at Naupada in Ganjám, which consists of large and hard crystals which will stand transport by pack-bullocks without wastage, to the more brittle kinds made in the factories in this district. These Brinjári gangs still transport large quantities of salt to the country beyond the gháts, but they no longer come to the pans in the same numbers as formerly. Much of the salt is carried in carts through the low country and sold to the Brinjáris at places at the foot of the hills or where the cart roads stop, such as Párvatípur, for example, and Naurangpur.
The Kónáda and Bimlipatam factories are small affairs; Póavaram is comparatively new; and Bálacheruvu suffers from want of labour and from its distance from the railway; but the Karása factory is a fine one, capable of much extension.
Figures of the manufacture and sales at each of these places in recent years are given in the separate Appendix to this volume. They supply (a) parts of Orissa and the inland country behind it, sharing the market with salt imported through Calcutta, and with Bombay salt brought by the Bengal-Nagpur railway to Sambalpur and the adjacent country; (b) the plains of Vizagapatam and parts of Ganjám; (c) the Jeypore country above the gháts, to which Bombay salt does not penetrate; and (d) the portion of Bengal and the Central Provinces which are accessible from the great route through the Ráyagada valley and are yet beyond competition from Bombay.
In 1896 Messrs. Stuart, Hall & Co., a branch of Messrs. Hall, Wilson & Co., who had leased part of the Karása factory, attempted so to purify and improve the local salt as to render it able to compete with the imported 'Live rpool' salt in the Calcutta market. They sifted the Karása product, sold the larger crystals in the local market in the ordinary way and then treated the smaller sittings with a concentrated brine containing a small proportion of carbonate of soda. The latter reacted upon the chlorides of magnesium and calcium in the salt, forming carbonates of magnesium and calcium (which could be removed) and chloride of sodium, or common salt. The product thus purified was dried by centrifugals and became an exceedingly white salt which was much less hygroscopic than the ordinary variety. This process was patented and in 1898 the Oriental Salt Company, Limited, was formed to work it. The company carried on operations at Naupada in Ganjám, Jagannaikpur (Jagannáthapuram) in Gódávari and Covelong in Chingleput, as well as at Karása. The venture, however, was not a commercial success and in December 1904 the shareholders decided voluntarily to wind up the company. Messrs. Hall, Wilson & Co. have been recognized as receivers for the debenture-holders, and still carry on work at Naupada.
All along the shore of the district are extensive salt swamps, the nine largest covering an area of 50 square miles. In these much spontaneous salt effloresces and this was at one time extensively consumed by the poorer classes. These people used also to scrape up the salt-earth found in the swamps and lixiviate it with water to obtain the salt from it. The problem of preventing these practices in so large an area was for many years one of great difficulty, and in 1865 a special Deputy Collector was appointed to endeavour to suppress the traffic. He reported soon afterwards that he believed that the quantity of this illicit salt consumed was larger than the amount of Government salt sold at all the factories, and said that the spontaneous salt and the salt-earth were openly collected in broad daylight in kávadis by bodies of men a hundred strong, and were even raided by people with carts. A doubt arose soon afterwards as to whether mere possession of salt-earth was an offence under the existing law, and this checked the preventive measures; but in 1872 prosecutions were revived and no less than 10,000 maunds of earth-salt were seized and as many as 2,000 persons were punished. The next year a special preventive force was entertained, but it was not strong enough to cope adequately with the difficulty and even in 1875-76 as much as 9,500 maunds of illicit salt were seized.
The manufacture of illicit salt has now practically ceased. Some of the swamps have become covered with blown sand and the increase in population has led to the cultivation of others of Salt. the saline areas.
There are in the district fifteen fish-curing yards, controlled by Government, in which salt is supplied duty free to be utilized in curing fish. The quantity of fish cured annually in these is about 57,000 Indian maunds. It is consumed throughout the district.
The abkári revenue consists of that derived from arrack, foreign liquor, toddy and hemp-drugs. Statistics regarding each of these items, and also concerning opium, will be found in the separate Appendix.
For abkári purposes, the district was long treated as consisting of three different zones in which three different systems of administration were required; namely, the Agency, the interior taluks and the littoral tracts; and even at present the system of administration in the Agency differs widely from that in the plains.
In the former (except in a few villages along the foot of the hills chiefly in Golgonda taluk) the Abkári Act I of 1886 is not in force, the officers of the Abkári department have no jurisdiction, and matters are directly administered by the Agent and his subordinates.
In this tract, unlike the rest of the district, there are no restrictions whatever upon the manufacture and consumption of toddy.
Except in Malkanagiri, where palmyra Palms are plentiful, toddy is obtained there from the sago-palm (Caryota urens), date and cocoa palms being rare and never tapped. A rough ladder, consisting of a stem of bamboo with the branches on either side of it cut short so as to make steps, is lashed to the tree and left there permanently, and the owner climbs up whenever he or his require a drink. The people do not know how to climb palms in the method followed by the Shánáns of the southern districts. The tree is tapped in the same way as a palmyra, the end of the flower spathe being cut off and a pot suspended below to catch the sap as it exudes.
Though the manufacture of toddy has always been unrestricted in the Agency, a fair amount of revenue has always been extracted from the consumption of spirit there, but methods of administration have always differed widely from those followed in the plains.
The early system in Jeypore was particularly simple: the estate was rented as a farm, the Rája bought it, and he then collected the revenue by imposing what amounted to a poll-tax on all the inhabitants — whether they sold or drank liquor or not — graduated according to their supposed means. In 1868 Government got to know of this, and indignantly took the farm under their own management. Improvements in the system were not so easy to effect, however, as at first sight appeared; for the hill people know of several forms of strong drink all of which can easily be made at home; and even if it had been possible to stop the manufacture of these in the thousands of scattered huts dotted about the hundreds of jungly and secluded valleys in the Agency, the coercion necessary would speedily have driven the hill men to resistance.
The most popular of these drinks is the liquor distilled from the blossom of the Bassia latifolia, called ippa in Telugu and mohwa in Uriya. This tree flowers in the month of Chaitra (March and April). The people burn the grass under the trees beforehand, so as to facilitate the gathering of the blossoms, and when these fall they turn out and collect them. If the blossoms are dried in the sun they will keep good for some weeks; and if they are fried and then pressed into balls (the frying makes them sticky) they will keep a couple of years. Some of them are mixed with jaggery and eaten, some are sold to the Sondis (see below) to be distilled into spirit, and in parts of the Agency {e.g., the Savara and Kuttiya Khond hills) some are retained for distillation at home. This latter process is simple- The flowers are soaked in water for three or four days and are then boiled with water in an earthenware chatty. Over the top of this is placed another chatty, mouth downwards, the join between the two being made air-tight by being tied round with a bit of cloth and luted with clay. From a hole made in the upper chatty a hollow bamboo leads to a third pot, specially made for the purpose, which is globular and has no opening except that into which the bamboo pipe leads. This last is kept cool by pouring water constantly over it, and the distillate is forced into it through the bamboo and there condenses.
Besides ippa liquor the hill people brew beer from rice, sámai (the millet Panicum miliare) and ragi. They 'mash' the grain in the ordinary manner, add some more water to it, mix a small quantity of a ferment with it, leave it to ferment three or four days, and then strain off the grain. The beer so obtained is often highly intoxicating, and different kinds of it go by different names, such as londa. pandiyam and maddikallu. The ferment which is used is called the sáraiya-mandu ('spirit drug') or Sondi-mandu ('Sondis' drug') and can be bought in the weekly markets. There are numerous recipes1[1] for making it, but the ingredients are always jungle roots and barks.It is sold made up into small balls with rice.
This beer is the common drink in places where the ippa tree is rare, such as the Pádwa and Koraput taluks (where theippatree is plentiful, as in Gunupur taluk, it is almost unknown), and seems a harmless kind of beverage. Sometimes, however, the fermented grain is afterwards distilled, and the spirit so made is potent enough.
At first the authorities endeavoured to administer the liquor revenue directly, under amáni, but gradually the renting system was reverted to everywhere except in Malkanagiri, Kotapad and Naurangpur. It was tried, indeed, in these also in 1880, but was a miserable failure. Both in the rented and the amani taluks the methods followed were much the same. Strong waters made for home consumption were entirely exempt from taxation, but manufacture for sale was only permitted under a license. Each retail shop had its own still alongside, and the license covered both. This system is necessary in a country which is too rugged to admit of easy transport from a central distillery to outlying shops, and in which strong drink transported by a highlander through highland villages would be unlikely to reach its destination without paying heavy toll en route.
After ten years of renting, the pendulum swung back again and the amáni system rose once more into favour. In 1893, in the amáni taluks, the right to distil and to sell in the same licensed premises was, for the first time, sold separately; in 1897 this policy was extended to the whole of the Agency except the Gunupur farm; in 1901 this farm was abolished; and at present the right to distil and sell is separately sold throughout the agency tracts except in 36 villages (mainly in Golgonda taluk) which, for abkári purposes, are included in the ordinary tracts. The stills make liquor both from ippa flowers and from grain.
To prevent smuggling from the Agency to the rest of the district, where the price of spirit is higher, a preventive belt, five miles wide, was established in 1890 along the frontier between the two; and in this no shops or stills may be set up, the actual shop-keepers and still-owners in the hills, especially in the Párvatípur and Pálkonda Agencies, are usually immigrants of the Sondi caste, a wily class who know exactly how to take advantage of the sin which doth so easily beset the hill man and to wheedle from him, in exchange for the strong drink which he cannot do without, his ready money, his little possessions, his crops, and finally his land itself. Statistics of the arrack rentals for the last decade in the Koraput division exhibit a marked increase and go to show either that the shops were sold for much less than their value in former years or, perhaps, that drinking there is more prevalent than it was; but in the Párvatípur Agency it is stated that extended communications and contact with the outer world are gradually teaching the hill people restraint in this matter, and that even the Chaitra Saturnalia (see p. 72) shows signs of decreasing in vehemence.
Outside the agency tracts, abkári administration usually consisted at first in dividing the country into farms and selling by auction the right to collect the arrack and the toddy revenue in them. The two were kept quite distinct and were sold separately. From 1830-31 to 1860-61 the receipts were almost stationary, fluctuating between Rs. 60,000 and Rs. 67,000; in 1868-69 they rose to a lakh ; and in the next year the farms sold for as much as Rs. 1,71,000. This, however, was more than they were worth, and several of the purchasers went bankrupt in consequence.
In 1872 the excise system (under which the revenue is collected in the form of a duty, levied at the distillery, on every gallon of liquor issued for consumption) was introduced in the case of arrack for a term of three years. Mr. Minchin of Aska in Ganjám undertook the supply of the liquor, and sent that required for the Gunupur and Ráyagada Agencies (which were included with the plain taluks) by road through Chicacole, and supplied the rest of the district through Bimlipatam, whither the liquor was brought down by sea. His contract included also the monopoly of the manufacture and sale of toddy, but he was allowed to sub-rent this on condition of paying to Government three-quarters of the sum for which he leased it. An attempt was at first made to give the Aska liquor, which was distilled from jaggery, the peculiar flavour popular in this district by mingling with it a little rice arrack; but this did not meet the public taste and eventually it became necessary to mix with it as much as a fourth part of rice spirit. Even then, this arrack was never as popular as that made in the country stills, and on this account Mr. Minchin was allowed to sub-rent Gunupur, Ráyagada and the Sálúr and Pálkonda Agencies on the same terms as the toddy farms. Numerous other difficulties also cropped up,1[2] chief among them being the smuggling of ippa arrack from the Agency into the interior taluks at the foot of the hills.
In 1875 another triennial lease was granted to Mr. Minchin for the arrack supply, but the toddy farms were sold separately. Smuggling continued and eventually led to the entire break-down of the excise system in the interior taluks. They were accordingly first leased out to Mr. Minchin and supplied on the old system of scattered stills, and afterwards, in 1878-79, rented out by public auction in four2[3] -farms to others, who manufactured two strengths of rice or ippa liquor (30° and 60° underproof respectively) at sanctioned stills and sold it at fixed shops. This step only transferred, and did not abolish, the smuggling: it was now systematically carried on from this rented belt into the littoral taluks in quart bottles, the provisions of the then abkári law making it no offence to transport arrack in quantities of one quart or less.
This system was overthrown by the introduction of the existing Abkári Act, which not only stopped 'the quart system',as it was called, but rendered the salt preventive staff available for the enforcement of the abkári law. At the beginning of 1888 the excise system was once more tried in these inland taluks, but the right of supply was given to native renters both there and in the littoral taluks, and Mr. Minchin's connection with the district, which had lasted for sixteen years, ceased.'3[4]
The supply of arrack to the district has for the last twelve years been in the hands of a native firm, known as the Vizagapatam Commercial Corporation, which makes the spirit from sugar-cane jaggery at their distillery at the district head-quarters. Since 1890 the issue of rice spirit has been discontinued, and this has done much to check the smuggling from the Agency tracts which was formerly such a difficulty, as illicit liquor can now be recognized at once. The system of supply of country spirit at present in force is known as the contract distillery supply system, under which the exclusive privilege of manufacture and supply is disposed of by tender and the prices to be charged at the distilleries, warehouses and wholesale dépôts are fixed by Government. The right to sell retail is sold separately, and shop by shop, by auction every year.
In the ordinary tracts the toddy revenue is managed on the tree-tax system, under which a tax is levied on every tree tapped. This was first introduced into certain of the taluks in October 1892. The right of retail sale at the shops approved by Government is in some cases sold annually by auction, or, more generally, on payment of fixed fees.
Toddy is obtained from the palmyra and date palms. The cocoanut is never tapped. The toddy-drawers are usually of the Yáta and Segidi castes. Their methods are the same as usual,the palmyra being tapped by cutting off the end of the flower spathe, and the date palm by making an incision like an inverted V close under the crown of leaves. In the zamindaris little care is taken to see that date trees are not overtapped, and hundreds of them may be seen ruined and even killed by excessive tapping.
Sweet toddy tapping is almost unknown. A little jaggery is made from palmyra toddy in two or three villages round Púdimadaka in the Sarvasiddhi taluk, but so far the industry is small.Date toddy is not used in this way.
The opium consumed in the district is all supplied from the Rajahmundry warehouse. The drug is generally eaten, maddat (the smoking mixture) being little in demand. On the plains the system of supply is the same as elsewhere. In the Agency, however, special conditions formerly resulted in special rules.
The Opium Act I of 1878 came into force on the 1st July 1880 and occasioned an immediate and abrupt rise in the price of the drug. In the Agency it went up from five (and even six) tolas a rupee to two tolas, and in some places none was procurable for love or money. The people in the Golgonda Agency, where almost everyone — men, women and children — eats opium, believed that Government had imposed the tax as a punishment for the Rampa rebellion, which was just over. The craving for a narcotic to which they had been habituated from childhood bat could no longer afford, and the deprivation of what they believed to be a panacea against malaria, dysentery and other hill diseases, rendered them openly discontented and restless, and the then Agent, Mr. Garstin, thought that special measures were necessary and suggested that Government should forego part of the usual opium duty so that the agency people might be able to have their daily dose without paying very much extra for it. This was agreed to, and from April 1881 opium of varying qualities was supplied by Government to licensed retailers, who sold it to the public at prices ranging from 5 to 3½ tolas per rupee, against the rate of two tolas which obtained in the low country. In 1882 the minimum price was raised to four tolas, and in 1883 to 3½ tolas, and this latter figure enabled Government to charge the usual duty in full and to hand over the whole business of supply to a monopolist from April 1884. Later on, the price was enhanced to three tolas, and in 1888-89, at Mr. H. G. Turner's suggestion, it was increased to 2½ tolas in all parts of the Agency except Malkanagiri taluk and the Golgonda and Mádgole hills. Mr. Turner was strongly of opinion that the opium habit was doing great harm among the Telugu hill folk in the south of the Agency; and he contrasted their physical condition and energy most unfavourably with those of the Uriyas further north, who are much less addicted to the drug. He did not believe that opium was in the least necessary to health, but held that on the contrary the people spent upon it money which would have been better laid out on food or warm clothes. He pointed out that opium-eaters required continually increasing doses as they got on in years, and that the habit was so universal that nursing mothers even rubbed the drug on their nipples before giving their babies the breast.
Two years later the price in the three excepted tracts above mentioned was raised, at Mr. Willock's suggestion, to the rate obtaining elsewhere in the Agency, namely, 2½ tolas per rupee; and in 1904 the rate throughout the district was enhanced to its present figure, 2½ tolas.
Retail supply is effected through vendors, who are granted licenses free in shops where the total annual sales are less than 1,000 tolas; pay Rs. 15 and Rs. 30 respectively if the sales are between 1,000 and 2,000 tolas and 2,000 and 3,000 tolas; and purchase the license by auction, subject to a minimum of Rs. 40, where the sales are more than 4,000 tolas annually. The consumption is greater than in any district except Gódávari, and the incidence of revenue per head of the population higher than anywhere except that district, the Nilgiris and Kistna.
In the Agency, the cultivation of the hemp plant is under no restrictions, but assertions on the part of officers of the Central Provinces that ganja was smuggled thither from the Jeypore zamindari, especially from the neighbourhood of Maidalpur, have recently been met by the prohibition of the export of the drug from the estate,1[5]
In the plains the sale of ganja is controlled on the system usual elsewhere. The drug is generally supplied from the Daggupád storehouse in Guntúr district, but a proportion of it comes from Kaniyambádi in North Arcot, where the crop grown on the Javádi hills is stored. Comparatively little is used in the district, and the consumers are largely religious mendicants and others from northern India, some Musalmans, and followers of the Rája of Vizianagram who picked up the habit when resident with former chiefs of that family at Benares.
Since April 1900, the collection of sea-customs has devolved,as elsewhere, upon the Salt, Abkári and Customs department.Of the two ports in the district, Bimlipatam contributes some-what the larger proportion of the small amount of export duties which are realized, and Vizagapatam the greater share of the import duties. These latter average about Rs. 5,500 annually at that port.
No land-customs are collected anywhere in the district now, but as late as 1860 almost every zamindar in the district levied on all travellers and traders passing through his property varying fees which (though often described as charges for protection, for pasturage, for the use of halting-places, and so forth) were in reality transit duties pure and simple. Varying rates were demanded for each kávadi-load, pack-bullock and cart, and in Jeypore a tax of three or four pies a bullock was stated to give the Rája an income of Rs. 2,500 per annum.2[6] These duties were not included in the assets on which the peshkash was originally fixed in these estates, and their eventual abolition (in 1863)involved no compensation. The Brinjári pack-bullock traders gave a pitiable account of the hardship they involved. ' We never knew ', they said, ' the amount we should have to pay. In the morning we were taxed; in the evening we were taxed. Our bullocks were detained, our merchandise seized. Tigers and wild beasts are dangerous, but the Rája's robbers are even more to be dreaded.'
The Income-tax Act is not in force in the Agency.
In the plain taluks the tax is levied and collected in the usual manner. Statistics will be found in the separate Appendix to this volume. In the triennium ending with 1904-05 the proportion borne by the tax-payers to the total population was smaller than in any other district in the Presidency, and the incidence of the tax per head of the population was lower than in any other except South Arcot and Salem, the figure being only 6 pies against an average for the Presidency, excluding Madras City, of 10½ pies. Only 25 per cent, of the assessees paid tax at the higher rate of 5 pies per rupee, against a similar Presidency average of over 37 per cent.
The zamindars and owners of proprietary estates in the district formerly levied for many years a profession tax, called moturpha and graduated on no very fixed principles, on certain classes of people resident within their properties. In 1861 this was stopped, compensation being paid to those of the zamindars and proprietors in fixing whose peshkash the proceeds of this tax had been included among the assets of the estate.
Both judicial and non-judicial stamps are sold on the system usual elsewhere. The Stamp Act is in force in the Agency. Statistics of the receipts will be found in the Appendix, and it will be seen that they are very small. Its revenue from this source has often been held to be an index of the prosperity of a district, since where trade is large and business brisk non-judicial stamps are largely required, while where the people have money in their pockets they are usually fond of spending it on litigation and the sale of judicial stamps accordingly increases. If this test be a true one, Vizagapatam as a whole is the poorest area in the Presidency, since, including the Agency, the revenue there per 1,000 of the population both from judicial and non- judicial stamps, and both in the year 1904-05 and the six years ending therewith, was lower than in any other Madras district. There are however certain special reasons why the stamp revenue there should be low, among them the infrequency of communications and the backwardness of the people in a large part of the district.
- ↑ 1 One given on p. 264 of Mr. CarmiChael's Manual contains 23 ingredients compare Mr. H. G Turner's letters in G.O., No. 532, Revenue, dated 2nd May 1874.
- ↑ 1 See G.Os., Nos. 561, Revenue, dated 6th May 1874, and 332, dated 2nd March 1875.
- ↑ 2 Consisting of (i) Gunupur and Ráyagada taluks, (ii)Gajapatinagaram, Sálúr and Bobbili, (iii) Párvatípur and Pálkonda and (iv) Víravilli and Srungavarapukóta.
- ↑ 3 A fuller history of abkári administration in Vizagapatam during this period will be found in G.O., No. 1005, Revenue, dated 19th December 1889.
- ↑ 1 G.O., No. 515, Revenue, dated 5th June 1905.
- ↑ 2 G.O., No. 676, Political, dated 30th August 1859.