1 SALT REVENUE DEPARTMENT FOR THE OFFICIAL YEAR IgoI-1g02,
2 fall of the past three years was only 3°79 inches, as compared
3 with an average of 1278 inches for the three years which
4 ended with 1898-99. The fall of 1899-1900 was only 95 of
5 an inch, that of 1900-01 7°47 inches, and that of the past
6 year 2°96 inches. Asa result of the continued drought, the
7 brine level has fallen, and the brine obtainable has been of
8 such high specific gravity that salt of a quality inferior to that
9 usually produced has formed in it and in smaller quantities.
10 It is to be hoped that the monsoon of 1902 will be a favours
11 able one, as the source is greatly in need of a recurrence of
12 normal rainfall. One result of the severe drought was that
13 drinking water for the people at the source had to be brought
14 throughout the year by railway from wells at Balotra on the
15 Luni river, a distance of 10 miles.
16 29. To meet the heavy demands of the trade, extraction
17 of salt was undertaken from 148 pits during the year, and
18 these were calculated to yield about 13 lakhs of maunds.
19 Maunds 11,78,429 were credited to stock, and the work of
20 extraction and storage was proceeding when the year closed.
21 Much of the salt produced was smaller in crystal, and inferior
22 in quality, to that obtained in previous years owing to the
23 high specific gravity of the brine, and to the proportion of
24 inferior salts in it being larger than usual, as also to the
25 circumstance that the strain on the source compelled the
26 acceptance of pits which had not been properly set with
27 thorns, and which contained salt of poor quality.
28 The minus closing balance at the end of the year
29 amounted to maunds 2,97,109, as compared witha similar
30 balance of maunds 3,76,816 at the close of 1g00-01, These
31 figures are nominal. As explained in last year’s report, salt
32 is, brodght upon our books when pits have been quite emptied
33 of ‘their contents and the produce has been stored. When
34 the demand is brisk, salt is issued from pits under extraction,
35 in which case stock is credited only when the whole of the pro-
36 duce of the pits has been cleared. The arrangements made for
37 production left an estimated stock balance of about 5 lakhs of
38 maunds to meet the demand during the current year until
39 resumption of extraction in November 1902, and it is believed
40 that this quantity will be sufficient. Salt 1s obtained so
41 readily from the pits that it is not necessary to keep large
42 stocks in reserve, and new salt has a better market value than
43 salt that has been long in store,
44 30. No change was made in the preventive arrangements
45 on the Luni river and its delta. During April and May 1901
46 maunds 4,82214 of free salt were distributed, at the rate
47 of six sérs per head, to 32,149 persons inhabiting 37 villages
48 within, and in the immediate neighbourhood of, the delta of
49 the Luni. The distribution of 1900-01 amounted to maunds
50 4,110-24 to 27,407 persons, and the increase in the popula-
51 tion during the past year indicates some revival of prosperity
52 by the return of people, who had migrated to Sindh and
53 elsewhere under the pressure of famine.
54 31. The sales of salt at Falodi by the officials of the
55 Jodhpur Darbar were in excess of those of 1yoo-o1, maunds
56 10,434 having been disposed of against maunds 4,066. It
57 1f believed that the larger sale was due to improvement in the
58 agricultural conditions of the country. supplied from this
59 Source. There was a stock of maunds 51,653 of salt, the
60 Property of the Department, lying at the Falodi Source in
61 charge of the State officials when the year closed.
62 ( ut)
63 PACHBADRA,
64 Pits opened for extrace
65 tion,
66 The Luni Salt Tract,
67 (4)
68 FALODI.
69 Sales of salt
70 Appendix III.