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2 SALT REVENUE DEPARTMENT FOR THE C¥FICIAL YEAR 1894-95,
3 These men have also been allowed to store their salt in two heaps,
4 one on each bank of the pit. This saves some. expense and
5 enables more labourers to work on the pit at the same time and
6 from our point of view is unobjectionable. Further, in previous
7 years some of the best salt got out of the pits was lost in stor-
8 age, as the larger crystals rolled down to the foot of the heap,
9 and got buried in the soft earth of the ‘talee,’ as the pit bank
10 when dressed for storage is called. Last year the ‘poonchee’, as
11 the salt at the edges of the pits is called, always the worst and
12 most discoloured, was first extracted and put downas a bed on
13 which the balance of the contents of the pit, the good clean salt,
14 was stacked. Formerly, that is before 1893-94, the salt was
15 brought up to the pit bank, and put up in small heaplets of 4 to
16 5 maunds each. These were measured with a graduated rod,
17 and the contents were then stacked in a large heap. Now the
18 salt is at once put up into the large permanent heap and the
19 contents arrived at by cubic measurement.”
20 The good demand for Pachbadra salt that existed in 1893-
21 94 and 1894-95, greatly benefitted the Kharwals, who, against
22 the sum of Rs. 15,571 in 1891-92, and Rs. 16,150 in 1892-93,
23 received in 1893-94, Rs. 86,766 and in 1894-95 Rs, 81,245 as
24 the price of the salt which was taken from them,
25 60. Excluding the two experimental pits restored by the
26 department the following is a detail of the number of working
27 pits on the register and the number of those from which salt
28 was taken during the past two years and which therefore at
29 present contain no mature salt yet fit for the market -—
30 Number of Number of pits emptied. aie of
31 Section or ,tract. _ picid a ye which no salt
32 DIE .On has been
33 register. | In 1894-95. | In 1893-94. | Total. taken.
34 Bara Sambra soe | 81 “8 1 9 72
35 Chota Sambra 121 23 13 386 85
36 Posali one 73 31 27 58 15
37 Hiragarh eon 138 40 26 66 72
38 Total eee 413 102 67 | 169 244
39 On this subject Mr. Buckley, the Assistant Commissioner
40 says :—“ Since the close of the year 4 pits in Chota Sambra, and
41 11 in Hiragarh, have been opened, and thesalt they contain is
42 being extracted and stored. Actually then at the present time
43 there are only 229 pits, (72 in Bara Sambra, 81 in Chota Sambra,
44 15 in Posali and 61 in Hiragarh) which contain our present
45 stock of unextracted salt. If these 229 pits were in good order I
46 would have no hesitation in setting down our reserve of salt in
47 them at 20 lakhs of maunds, but as many of them are in disre-
48 pair and many have not been set sufficiently with ‘ Morali,’ I
49 consider that 100 of the 229 pits should be set aside as of no
50 practical value at present. Taking 130 as the probable’ number
51 of pits which contain salt, I estimate that we have in the tract
52 10 to 12 lakhs of maunds of salt ready in the pits. This may
53 Seem an excessive estimate, but I do not think it is, as the largest
54 number of these pits which I think contain good salt are situat-
55 ed in the Hiragarh section, the most productive part of the
56 tract. It is however quite impossible to say what these pits
57 really contain both as regards quantity and quality. The
58 owners of course assert that each one of the pits is full of just
59 ( 49 )
60 Loeeeee eed
61 REVIEW BY SECTIONS.
62 PACHBADRA,
63 Condition of pits, quality
64 of salt and future pros-
65 pects.