1 SALT REVENUE DEPARTMENT FOR THE OFFICIAL YEAR 1895-96,
2 considering that for years the Kharwals havedone nothing in REVIEW BY SECTIONS.
3 this way, it is pleasing to record that a beginning has been made PACHBADRA.
4 towards inducing the Kharwals to put their pits in good order.
5 _ I see no reason why in a few years we should not have all the
6 pits we are likely to need in perfect order.
7 The renovation of the 17 pits represents an expenditure of
8 not less than Rs. 4,000, and this too in what Imay well call a
9 famine year, when the Kharwals felt the stress of the prevailing
10 scarcity. All the pits emptied during the year have been pro-
11 perly re-set and attended to. All this has of course given what
12 seemed endless trouble, but the object in view was worth the
13 attention given to it. The Kharwal is willing enough to do
14 anything we require done to his pit: the difficulty is to induce
15 him to do what is needed with the money he receives from us as
16 payment for his salt when it is stacked and estimated by cubic
17 measurement. He is improvident and thriftless, and will
18 recklessly squander every rupee he can lay handson. Knowing
19 this, and knowing, too, that the Kharwal will borrow on ruinous
20 terms (60 per cent. compound interest was the usual rate), I
21 had the contents of the stacks of salt largely under-estimated
22 with this object in view. The Kharwal was paid sufficient to
23 cover his expenses for extracting and storing the salt and a
24 handsome balance for himself, leaving, in the value of the excess
25 of salt over the estimated quantity in the heap, sufficient
26 security for any advances he needed to put his pit in proper
27 order with. On this security the Kharwals can easily get funds
28 for re-setting and repairing their pits at 12 per cent.
29 “ All this, as I have said, gives endless trouble, for while the
30 Kharwal thinks there is a rupee to spare in the value of the
31 excess of salt in the heap there is nothing he will not do to get
32 at that rupee.- But there is no other way of forcing them to
33 attend to their pits.
34 “ The experimental pits will be emptied in the winter. I ex-
35 pect 10,000 maunds of good salt from the pit in Chota Sambra,
36 but only about 3,000 maunds from the one in Bara Sambra,
37 which, judging by its present appearance, is exhausted, and
38 would have given little or no salt but for the heavy rain which
39 fell in 1893 dnd 1894.
40 “The Kharwals have again behaved well as a body, and have
41 given no trouble which was not settled. Formerly our plan
42 of estimating the salt we took from them aimed at providing
43 an excess of 25 per cent. to be paid for when the heap was
44 cleared, My plan secures a larger excess, and this the Khar-
45 wals have submitted to, knowing why it was done. Last year
46 I had some trouble with the owners of pits which contained
47 inferior salt, which they wished us to take, and when they failed
48 they naturally showed discontent, for in some cases the bad pits
49 were all they owned. Everything that was possible was done to
50 help the poorer Kharwals, but considering that there are 413 pits
51 on the register, that we can take only about 50 to supply our
52 annual requirements, that we must take only the very best ‘salt
53 in the tract, that the owners of 350 pits must each year be
54 denied, that they areignorant people and poor because they are
55 improvident, the wonder to me is not that they showed discon-
56 tent, but that they do not get more clamorous. I got them
57 during the year under report to re-set their pits, to attend to
58 them, and torenovate 17, which I have said could not have
59 cost less than Ks. 4,000, and I am glad to be able to report that
60 as a body they behaved well.”
61 ( 43 )