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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 7, p. 101.

ADMINISTRA TION o01 There is no railway in the District; but a project to connect the Hyderabad-Godavari Valley Railway with Khandwa, by means of a line which will run through Basim and Akola, is under consideration. The total length of metalled roads is 62 miles, and of unmetalled roads lio miles. All these, except 5 miles of the former and 27 of the latter which are maintained from Local funds, are in charge of the Public Works department. The principal road passing through the District is the Akola-Hingoli road, which passes through Medsi and Basim town, and is the highway from the latter place to the railway. The roads to Pusad and Umarkhed are metalled for a short distance only. As regards liability to famine, the District cannot be differentiated from the rest of Berar. The crops depend upon the south-west monsoon, the failure of which is not often so extensive as to Famine. cause severe distress. In I896-7 the District suffered from scarcity owing to a partial failure of the rainfall, and in I899-I900 the famine which was felt throughout Berar afflicted Basim severely. The difficulty of coping with this calamity was increased by the immigration of large numbers from the Hyderabad State, where relief measures were less perfect than in Berar. In May, 19oo, when the distress was at its height, 103,215 persons were on relief works and 36,350 in receipt of gratuitous relief; and it is calculated that 24,000 cattle died. The three adluks, at the head-quarters of each of which there is a tahsilddr, have already been mentioned. The Administration. superior staff of the District consists of the usual officers. The arrangements for the administration of justice are described in the article on AKOLA DISTRICT. Dacoities, cattle-thefts, and house- breakings fluctuate in numbers, as elsewhere, with the state of the season, but are somewhat more numerous than in the Payanghat, owing to the large number of Banjaras in the District. These, however, are gradually being weaned from their criminal propensities. Murders, which are not common, are usually due to personal motives. According to the Ain-i-Akbari, the land revenue demand in the parganas composing Basim District was 6.8 lakhs, a sum which but slightly falls short of the land revenue demand in the same area in 1903-4, which was 8 lakhs. The extent to which Basim, in common with the rest of Berar, suffered from the wars, maladministration, and natural calamities of the latter part of the seventeenth, the eighteenth, and the early part of the nineteenth centuries is illustrated by the striking fall in the land revenue demand, which in I853, at the time of the Assignment, was returned by the Nizam's officers-who had certainly no reason for understating it-at 2.4 lakhs. Considering the extension of cultivation, and the rise in the price of produce since