Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/316

 ;

BENGAL.

3o6 of ‘unreserved’ forest,

bringing

up the

total area

to 11,669 square

miles.

—

System of Land Tenures and Rent. The land revenue of Bengal and Behar is fixed under the Permanent Settlement, concluded by Lord Cornwallis in 1793. The Government, by abdicating its position as owner of the soil, and contenting itself with a permanent revenue charge on the land, freed itself from the labour and risks attendant upon a detailed local management. The land is held by zaminddrs, who pay their revenue direct to Government. In default of punctual payment of the revenue fixed upon the estates, these are liable to sale

Many

at public auction.

of the zaminddrs have in their turn disposed

of their zaminddns to under-tenants.

tenures

many

—permanent

and temporary

The

—has

practice of granting understeadily increased, until in

whole permanently settled This process of sub-infeudation has not terminated with the fatniddrs (permanent Lower gradations of tenure-holders) and ijdrdddrs (lease-holders). sub-tenures under them, called dar-fatnis and dar-ijdrds, and still lower subordinate tenures, have been created in great numbers. Such Districts only a small proportion of the

area remains in the direct possession of the zaminddrs.

tenures and under-tenures often comprise defined tracts of land

a

common



but

practice has been to sub-let certain aliquot shares of the

whole superior tenure, the consequence of which any particular village of an estate often pay different landlords,

—a

is

that the tenants in

their

many many annas

rents to

fraction, calculated at the rate of so

All the under-tenures in Bengal have been created since the Permanent Settlement. Dependent taluks, gaulis, hdolds {hawdlds), and other similar fixed and transferable under-tenures existed before the Settlement, and their permanent In addition to these numerous character was recognised at the time. tenures, the country is dotted with small plots of land held revenue free the great majority of them having been granted by former Governments, or by zaminddrs under those Governments, as religious endowments, grants which have been recognised and confirmed by the

or pice in the rupee, to each. not, however,



—

English Government.

of rent paid by the cultivating tenant depend upon a There are rentals at the rate of pd. an acre There are rdyats with there are rack-rents at the rate of 12s. an acre. a permanent interest in the soil, whose rent was fixed fifty years ago or even before the Permanent Settlement, and is now nominal and unThere are rdyats with a right of occupancy, whose rents are alterable. liable to enhancement only under certain conditions, and are therefore

The

rates

variety of circumstances.

variable.

There are tenants-at-will, whose rents are in many Districts at There are tenants who cultivate their landlords’ lands at a rent, but whose actual profits are divided with the landlord.

a rack-rate. trifling