1 REPORT ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE NORTHERN INDIA
2 REVIEW BY SECTIONS. of largish crystals, and also for issue to the Jodhpur Darbar
3 PACHBADRA.
4 for sale in Marwar. Where the people buy by measure and
5 not by weight, small graintand white salt is preferred. The
6 150 pits, I have set down as containing our present reserve of
7 salt, contain, I estimate, 15 lakhs of maunds. This is not an
8 excessive estimate. Next winter, when the 63 pits, from which
9 salt was taken last year, will again have a crop of salt, our re-
10 serve of salt in the pits may safely be estimated at 20 lakhs, a
11 reserve amply sufficient to meet any demand however emergent.
12 “Tt must be remembered that with the Banjarah trade dwind-
13 ling, and with railway extension all round helping the compe-
14 tition of Sambhar and Baragara salts, we cannot look forward
15 to issuing from this salt. source more than five lakhs of maunds
16 of salt annually. With this demand before us, and remember-
17 ing, too, that an emptied pit can be got ready to yield a crop of
18 salt within two years, we need have no anxiety for the future.
19 Having given the subject the best of my time and attention
20 during the past four years, and having examined the contents
21 of every pit in the tract, we could I believe meet without a hitch,
22 and without any great strain on our resources, treble the de-
23 mand we may reasonably expect. There is I believe more good
24 salt in the tract now, in the pits, and in the heaps stacked on
25 their banks, than there has been for years. This is the opinion
26 of the Pachbadra traders, who have been so intimately eonnect-
27 ed with the tract that their opinion is worth considering. My
28 own opinion is that there is three times as much good salt in
29 the tract now as there was when the rush for salt set in in 1893.
30 “ This naturally is the result of the large number of pits emp-
31 tied in 1893 and 1894, which have since been properly attended
32 to, and of the heavy rains of those years which freshened up.
33 the brine springs and disinfected the emptied pits.
34 “ The rains were a failure last year, and consequently the tract
35 is in worse condition than at this time a year ago. Exceptin the
36 upper section of Hiragarh, Posali and Chota Sambra, there is
37 no moisture in the ground. In Bara Sambra, and the adjoining
38 section of Chota Sambra, the pits are quite dry, showing how
39 exhausted these sections of the tract are. In Hiragarh, Posali
40 and the upper half of Chota Sambra, above the ‘Merund’ or
41 clay belt, there is moisture in the pits, but none in the ‘ Morund’
42 belt, :
43 “So entirely is the tract, that is, the brine springs, dependent
44 on local rainfall that another such year as the last will I
45 believe throw the tract back into the state it was before the
46 heavy rains of 1893.
47 “ In an earlier section of this paragraph I have estimated the
48 number of pits in fair to good order at about 200, including the
49 63 emptied last year, and the 2 experimental pits.
50 “All the pits emptied in 1893 and 1894 have been properly
51 re-set with ‘Morali,’ and will give good results. More than this
52 could not be done in those years, for, as explained in my reports,
53 labour was scarce. Last year a distinct advance was made, for
54 I induced the Kharwals to thoroughly clean out 17 of the pits
55 which were in bad order. This cost the owners from 200
56 to 300 rupees per pit. These 17 pits are now as good as new,
57 and as nine are in Hiragarh, and eight in the best half of Posali,
58 we may look forward in 1897 to getting quite two lakhs ot
59 maunds of first class salt from them. Considering the large
60 number of pits in bad order, 17 may not seem much; but
61 ( 42 )