The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.483

v3.c20.483

*tangas*. The revenue from the Doāb, which had been nearly depopulated by the exactions of Muhammad amounted to 8,000,000 *tangas*, and that of the crown lands of the whole kingdom to 68,500,000 *tangas*, each worth about twenty pence. At a later period of his reign, in 1375, Fīrūz abolished some twenty-five vexatious cesses, mostly of the nature of *octroi* duties, which had weighed heavily upon merchants and tradesmen. The immediate loss to the public exchequer was computed at 3,000,000 *tangas* annually, but the removal of these restrictions on trade and agriculture naturally produced a fall in prices, so that wheat sold in Delhi at eight *jītals* and pulse and barley at four *jītals* the *man*, the *jītal* being worth rather more than one-third of a penny. These rates were virtually the same as those fixed by ‘Alā-ud-dīn Khaljī, but in the reign of Fīrūz there was no arbitrary interference with the law of supply and demand, except in the case of sweetmeats, the manufacturers of which were justly compelled to allow the consumer to benefit by the fall in the price of the raw material.