Local Government in Ancient India c12.26

c12.26

The maintenance of tanks chiefly meant the periodical removal of its silt, and the work devolved upon the municipal department—or rather 'the tank committee'—of the village assembly, who were put in charge of endowments of both money and land for the purpose by private donors. We have also seen that preservation of tanks was regarded as a religious work, bringing great spiritual merit to the man providing for it. Tanks themselves, like temples, had endowments of land or money of their own, and the repairs were enacted at the expense of these endowments. In the Kanarese country the term *koḍagi* denotes a grant of land rent-free for the purpose of service in connexion with the restoration or construction of tanks or of their maintenance in good order (*Ep. Ind.*, vol. III, p. 51). In the absence of suitable endowments or private charity the assemblies themselves offered land from the culturable wastes of the village as an inducement to undertake such works, and where such wastes were not available, and private enterprise and charity failed, they themselves undertook them at the joint expense of the villagers, who all benefitted by same. Thus probably arose the custom of *kuḍimarāmat* in Southern India, by which the employment of compulsory labour for repairs to irrigation works is sanctioned.