Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c1.16

c1.16

In January 1868 the Bombay Government decided that the general supervision and direction of the work should be placed in the hands of a Committee consisting of the Revenue Commissioners, the Director of Public Instruction, and the Commissioner of Customs, and that an Editor should be appointed with a small copying establishment to act under the directions of the Committee. The Editor was to give his entire time to the work and was expected to finish it in about a year. He was to collect and arrange in alphabetical order all recorded information regarding the towns and other places of interest in each Collectorate, and to send printed on half margin each draft when completed to the local officers for verification, additions, and alterations. When the drafts were returned and corrected by the Editor, they were to be laid before the Committee. To enable the Editor to meet such expenses as a fair remuneration for articles contributed by qualified persons, and also to pay for the printing of the work with small accompanying maps, an amount not exceeding Rs. 12,000 was sanctioned for the total expense of the Gazetteer including the payment of the Editor. At the outset it was decided to place a portion of the sum sanctioned not exceeding Rs. 2000, at the disposal of the Commissioner in Sindh to secure the preparation of articles referring to Sindh. The Committee were requested to meet at Poona in June 1868 and to report to Government on the best mode of preparing and editing the Gazetteer and supervising its publication. The Collectors and Political Officers were in the meanwhile requested to ascertain what records in their possession were likely to be useful for the preparation of a Gazetteer and what papers in the possession of others and likely to be useful for the purpose were obtainable within their charge. Collectors and Political Officers were requested to send their replies direct to the Director of Public Instruction who would collect them on behalf of the Committee.