A History of Assam c23.52

c23.52

When Cachar was annexed, Government stepped into the position of the Raja as absolute owner of the soil. The old rates of assessment were continued till 1839, when a five years' settlement was made. During this period a professional survey was effected, and the next settlement was concluded on its basis for a period of fifteen years; all cultivated land was assessed at a uniform rate of Rs. 3 per *hāl* (nearly five acres); waste land paid no rent for five years and only half rates for the next five. In 1859 a twenty years' settlement was effected. Then followed one for fifteen years and, in 1900, another for the same term. At this last settlement an attempt was made to assign the villages to classes according to the estimated profits of cultivation, and also to recognize distinctions in the quality of land within the village. Rice lands were distributed into five classes, and other cultivated lands, except tea for which there is only one rate, into four. The *bigha* was introduced as the unit of area, and separate leases were issued to individual settlement-holders in lieu of the old co-parcenary tenures which had come down from the days of native rule, when bodies of men, often of different castes or even religions, combined to break up waste land, and were held jointly responsible for the whole revenue payable thereon. In 1918-19 the district was again re-settled for a further period of twenty years on the soil unit system adopted at the last settlement of the Brahmaputra valley. The rates now range from 1.5 to 3 annas per *bigha* for waste, from 5 to 15 annas for cultivated land and from 6 annas to Rs. 1-3-0 for homestead.