Tax Determination in Pau Settlement in Garhwal

Characteristics of Pau Settlement in Garhwal -6

                            British Administration in Garhwal   -51       

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History of British Rule/Administration over Kumaun and Garhwal (1815-1947) -69

            History of Uttarakhand (Garhwal, Kumaon and Haridwar) -906

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                              By: Bhishma Kukreti (History Student)

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           In 1890, British government appointed Dharmanand as Deputy Collector for land settlement of Garhwal. The job of Dharmanand was for taking decision on disputes, marking the boundaries of village borders, ‘Mukabala’and other jobs for land settlement. ‘Mukabala’ procedure was same as in Beckett settlement. There were extra ordinary border disputes. For prompt dispute settlement, government handed over additional responsibility to deputy collector of Lansdowne Maneklal for settling border disputes of South Garhwal Pattis.  Maneklal conducted that responsibility very badly. Maneklal settled many disputes without studying records of Amins or Patwari. He used to sit in place and just by casual watching the long stretched area he used to take decision for settling disputes. Government transferred Maneklal to North sub division in August 1893(Pau, pp 80).

                       Recording in Pau Settlement  

  Officials measured hill villages land for 979.9 square miles. The area of farm dividing ‘meend’ was measured for 28.3 square miles. The agriculture land for 951.6 square miles was recorded in ‘Khasra’. Officials measured 2877305 farms. The average area of farms was .212 acre per farm. There were 50-100 employees for recording 2877305 farms. British government built a house for record making employees staying there for Rs.9400.Once, the number of record making employees reached up to 500. In March 1892, the work of recording was completed (Pau, pp 80).

                          Tax Determination in Pau Settlement

        Government instructed Pau for increasing the tax for Rs. 50000 for 1890 settlement with logical means.  Pau found that there is unevenness for land fertility, population, economic condition and income source in each region of Garhwal hills. Pau had three alternatives for taking decision-

 1-Guessing by watching the area from a hill top

2-Visting each village and assessing the real situation of farm potentiality, people economic conditions

3-Inspecting though binoculars

    Pau choose second alternative.  Pau had opinion that casual inspection can’t determine the real economic condition.  Pau divided the district agriculture land into many circles. Pau determined the tax by through study of each circle.  Pau also put tax on ‘katil’ land. Pau followed Beckett’s procedure for tax determination in Kumaon. Pau determined ‘Factor’ as follows (Pau, pp 93)-

Factor for irrigated land in ‘beesee’- 3

Factor for superior non irrigated land in ‘beesee’- 1.5

Factor for second grade non- irrigated land in ‘beesee’-1

Factor for Ijran land in ‘beesee’- 00.5

Factor for Katil land in ‘beesee’- 00.5

Factor for Katil land in ‘beesee’ in Tallasaln and Gangasalan - 00.25

  There was 50% increase on payable tax in Pau determination (Pau, page 93)

       The tax was determined as per past determination for the unmeasured land. Then the determined tax was divided by Pattis. Pau considered the numbers of domestics animals too. After determining tax on Pattis, he called Padhans and Thokdars for determining village tax.  Since, it was difficult for Padhans accepting the determined tax, Patwari intervened and decided tax on each village.

  In many cases, the tax increased by 100% and in some cases increment was Rs25. In such cases, the increment was fixed for increasing tax step by step (Pau, pp109).

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Copyright@ Bhishma Kukreti Mumbai, India, bckukreti@gmail.com 24/9/2016

History of Garhwal – Kumaon-Haridwar (Uttarakhand, India) to be continued… Part -907

*** History of British Rule/Administration over British Garhwal (Pauri, Rudraprayag, and Chamoli1815-1947) to be continued in next chapter

(The History of Garhwal, Kumaon, Haridwar write up is aimed for general readers)

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References  

 1-Shiv Prasad Dabral ‘Charan’, Uttarakhand ka Itihas, Part -7 Garhwal par British -Shasan, part -1, page-208, 209

2- Pau, Garhwal Settlement report page 80, 81, 93

Xx

History of British Rule, Administration , Policies, Revenue system,  over Garhwal, Kumaon, Uttarakhand ; History of British Rule , Administration , Policies Revenue system  over Pauri Garhwal, Udham Singh Nagar Kumaon, Uttarakhand; History of British Rule, Administration, Policies ,Revenue system  over Chamoli Garhwal, Nainital Kumaon, Uttarakhand; History of British Rule, Administration, Policies ,Revenue system  over Rudraprayag Garhwal, Almora Kumaon, Uttarakhand; History of British Rule, Administration, Policies ,Revenue system  over Dehradun , Champawat Kumaon, Uttarakhand ; History of British Rule, Administration, Policies, ,Revenue system  over Bageshwar  Kumaon, Uttarakhand ;

History of British Rule, Administration, Policies, Revenue system over Haridwar, Pithoragarh Kumaon, Uttarakhand;