Report of the Land Revenue Committee 1938

Abstract

Land revenue is the modern equivalent of the share of the produce which, from time immemorial, its past history. the ruler in India has taken as his due from all land. Manu took from a twelfth to a sixth of the gross produce and in “ times of war or other public calamity ” as much as a fourth. Under Muslim rule the share taken increased and finally crystallized under Akbar into a third. It is to Akbar and his great minister, Todar Mal, that we owe the foundations of our present system. The State’s share was commuted into cash on the basis of a ten-year average of prices,2 an elaborate land record system was evolved, and an army of officials employed to survey the land and to assess and collect the revenue.