A History of Assam c21.35

c21.35

Goālpāra, including the Gāro hills but excluding the Eastern Duārs, was originally administered from Rangpur and, as such, formed part of the province of Bengal which, by the Mughal Emperor's *farmān* of the 12th August 1765, was transferred to the East India Company. Under the provisions of Regulation X of 1822 it was cut off from Rangpur and formed into a separate district with headquarters at Goālpāra. When David Scott was entrusted with the administration of the tract taken from the Burmese, he was already in charge of Goālpāra, and from that time this district was treated as part of the ordinary jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Assam. In 1867, when the Bengal Commissionership of Koch Bihār was formed, it, with the newly acquired "Eastern Duārs," was included in that Commissionership. In the following year the judicial administration was restored to the Judicial Commissioner of Assam, but the executive control remained with the Commissioner of Koch Bihār until the formation of the Chief Commissionership of Assam in 1874. As will be seen further on, the Gāro hills were constituted a separate district in 1869. When the daily mail steamer service was inaugurated, about a dozen years later, the headquarters of the Goālpāra district were removed to Dhubri, which was made the steamer terminus.