A History of Assam c23.28

c23.28

The inconvenience of governing Assam as an appanage of the unwieldy province of Bengal had long been recognized. It was remote and difficult of access, and few Lieutenant-Governors ever visited it. The local conditions were altogether different from those which prevailed in Bengal, and were quite unknown to the officers responsible for the government of that province, who had not the time, even if they had the inclination, to make themselves acquainted with them. But the patronage was valuable, and proposals for its severance were always vigorously opposed until Sir George Campbell became the Lieutenant-Governor. That strenuous ruler, thought he took a greater personal interest in this out-of-the-way tract than any of his predecessors had done, speedily became convinced of the impossibility of carrying on the administration of Bengal on the system which then prevailed. He was strongly of opinion that the position of the Bengal Government should either be raised, by amalgamating the Board of Revenue with it, or lowered, by lopping off some of its more remote territories. The Government of India preferred the latter alternative, to which Sir George Campbell assented; and, on the 6th February, 1874, the districts which now form the province of Assam, with the exception of Sylhet and of tracts subsequently acquired, were separated from the Government of Bengal and formed into a Chief Commissionership. On the 12th September of the same year Sylhet was incorporated in the new province.