A History of the Mahrattas v1.c7.159

v1.c7.159

¹ [The Khōts (Khotes) have given their name to a well-known land-tenure (Khōti) in the Konkan, under which the village-lands are held by families who make an annual agreement with Government, and have the right to lease out land on their own terms. Under the British survey settlement the Khōt, as peasant proprietor, pays the survey rates, while the actual cultivators pay rent to the Khōt not exceeding one and a half times the Government demand. In Ratnāgiri District the Khōti tenure was subjected to close scrutiny from 1850, owing to the grave indebtedness of the Khōts' tenantry, and eventually, in 1880, the Khōti Act was passed by the Bombay Government, whereby all extra cesses were abolished, and the relations between the Khōts and their cultivating tenants were definitely settled. Some of the original Khōti grants in Ratnāgiri date back to the time of the Adilshāhī government of Bijāpur. (I.G. Bom., 1909, i. 99; ii. 123, 155–6.)]