1 ,
2 SALT REVENUE DEPARTMENT FOR THE OFFICIAL YEAR 1900-I9or,
3 from the Sources are so good that there is no necessity for
4 traders to maintain large stocks in hand. As regards last
5 year’s figures of consumption in the ¢vams-Indus portion of
6 the Punjab, it is'far from certain that the trade statistics of
7 exports beyond the border are accurate. These statistics
8 show that maunds 2,70,784 were exported beyond the border
9 during the year under report, but maunds 1,18,639 only were
10 declared for export at the mines.
11 The decrease of consumption per head in the Punjab and
12 North-Western Provinces and Oudh compared with 1899-1900,
13 and the increase in Rajputana, Central India and the Central
14 Provinces, is accounted for mainly by the difference in the
15 figures of population.
16 68. The number of persons arrested for offences against
17 the salt law, the manner in which the cases were disposed of
18 and the nature of the punishments awarded will be found fully
19 detailed in Appendices XVI and XVII,
20 Of the total number of 1,602 persons arrested during the
21 year, 674, 2.¢., 42°07 per cent. were released by the Depart-
22 ment after enquiry into the charges against them, and 928
23 or’ 57°93 per cent. were prosecuted, of whom 813 were
24 convicted. Of the 813 persons convicted, 419 were sentenced
25 to varying terms of imprisonment with or without fine, 7 were
26 whipped ard 387 were sentenced to fine only. Of the 674
27 persons departmentally released, 436 were released for
28 making or being in possession of less than 1 seer of salt, 169
29 were released on proof of ignorance or inadvertence or for
30 want of sufhcient evidence, and 69 were infirm persons, preg-
31 nant women or children, or persons impelled to crime by the
32 pressure of want.
33 ‘Forty-seven seizures, involving 95 persons, were effected
34 during the year in the czs-Indus Mines Division compared with
35 43 cases and 49 persons arrested during 1899-1900. Eleven of
36 the cases, in which 47 persons were concerned, were of an
37 unusual character, and related to the ilficit manufacture of salt
38 direct from saline earth at a place in the Salt Range where
39 there is some saline soil. In another case, in which five
40 persons were concerned, salt was manufactured from brine
41 taken from a gorge in the Range. This illicit manufacture of
42 salt is not known to have been resorted to before in the Salt
43 Range and its vicinity; and the recourse to it recently ap-
44 pears to have been prompted by poverty. The fact that
45 such cases should have occurred seems to show that the
46 reductions recently effected in the preventive establishment,
47 employed to guard, outcrops in the Range, have not unduly
48 weakened the establishment and that the salt is still efficiently
49 guarded. Excluding the above cases of illicit manufacture and
50 four cases of thefts from traders of duty-paid salt, and includ- |
51 ing 35 unsuccessful attempts in which no arrests were made
52 and which have not on that account been included in Appendix
53 XVI, 66 attempts at removal of salt were made during the
54 year. Theft,was prevented in 4o cases, and in 26 cases the
55 establishment failed to prevent the theft of a quantity of salt
56 estimated to amount to maunds 7-53 seers, or to trace the
57 smugglers who removed it, The salt seized in 8 of the 40
58 cases and removed in 5 of the 26 cases was efflorescence.
59 In the Kohat Mines Division the number of persons
60 arrested during the year (117) exceeded the number ar-
61 resfed in 1899-1900 by 39. Owing to the Waziri blockade,
62 the Commissioner of Peshawar recommended that isolated
63 guard posts should be temporarily abandoned and that the
64 ( 23 )
65 Penal action of the
66 Department,
67 Appendices X
68 XVII Wi ond