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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 12, p. 206.

206 GA Y1L DLSTRICT Owing to changes in the jurisdiction of the District and the destruc- tion of records at the time of the Mutiny, early statistics of the land revenue are not available. The current demand has risen from 13.8 lakhs in 1870-1 to 14'39 lakhs in 1903-4. Subdivision of estates has gone on rapidly, there being in the latter year 7,876 estates, of which 7,828 with a demand of 1340 lakhs were permanently settled, 15 with a demand of Rs. 47,000 temporarily settled, and the remainder were held direct by Government. Among special tenures may be mentioned altamghd grants, or lands given in perpetuity as a reward for conspicuous military service ; ghd17e 1i lands, assigned for the maintenance of guards and patrols on roads and passes; and madat- mdsh, lands granted to favourites and others. About 70 per cent. of the cultivated land is held under the system of bhaoli or produce rents. There are two kinds : ddndbandi, where the crop is appraised while standing in the field; and batai or agorbatai, where the crop is taken to the threshing-floor and divided equally between the landlord and tenant after the labourers engaged in cutting and carrying it have been given their share. Under the ddndbandi system also the crop is supposed to be divided equally, but in practice the landlord's share is generally isths and often even more. In the case of cash rents three kinds of tenure obtain: namely, the ordinary nagdi, shikmi, and chakath. A shikmi tenure in this District means a tenure held on a cash rent fixed for ever. A chakath holding is one in which the rent is fixed for a term of years; the term is also often applied to settle- ments made for the reclamation of cultivable waste. Another local tenure is the paran or paran~heri, under which rice land held on the bhaoli system and suited to the growth of sugar-cane or poppy is settled at a specially high rate of rent in the years when these crops are grown. The following rates of rent per acre may be regarded as fairly general rice land, if fit for only a single crop, Rs. 1-8-o to Rs. 8, and if yielding a double crop, Rs. 3 to Rs. 1o; land on which wheat, barley, gram, pulses, and oilseeds are grown, RS. 2 to Rs. 8 ; sugar-cane and poppy land, Rs. 3 to Rs. 16 ; land growing bhddoi crops such as maize, marud, or, jowdr, Rs. 1-8--o to Rs. 5 ; and land growing potatoes, Rs. 4 to Rs. 16. The Government estates in the District and part of the Tekari estate with a total area of 582 square miles were cadastrally surveyed and settled between 1893 and 1898. The incidence of land revenue was found to be R. 0-10-5 per acre and the rent Rs. 4-0-10, the land revenue demand thus amounting to only 16 per cent. of the rent. Over the whole District the maximum and minimum rent rates per acre are about Rs. 16 and 8 annas respectively, the average being Rs. 5-12-o. The average holding of a ryot is about 6 acres. Recently the Deo and Maksudpur estates, with an area of 92 and 132 square miles respectively, have also come under survey and settlement.