Page 39 - Muzaffargarh Gazzetteer

As described above, during the Sultanate period the development of
agriculture rather than the land revenue was a determining factor. If a tenant
failed to cultivate the land, state managed to get it cultivated through agents
and after deducting the expenditure and the state's shares, profit was paid
to the owner. The settlement with the group was always avoided because it
was held a retrogressive tax which enabled the influential chiefs,
Muqaddams, headmen and agents to escape payment by an unjust
distribution. During British period, the land revenue demands were
determined so high that it had to be revised three times up to the settlement.
Due to their anxiety to ensure land revenue old assignees, agents, exploiters,
headmen, Hindu merchants and colonists were recognized as owners without
going into the details of their hereditary rights. The peasants were recognized
as owner proprietors wherever the claim was not advanced by the above
mentioned categories of the landlords. The tillers of the soil were recognized
either as tenants-at-will or occupancy tenants. The labourers employed for
clearance of land by private arrangements as “Tarudadkars”, were recognized
as Adhlapi, Mundhimar and Bootamar tenants. A class of fresh assignees as
Inamdars was also introduced. This class later on operated as speculators in
the entire district and purchased rights in shamlat land from illiterate
peasants. Large tracts of land used as pastures were notified as state land,
which were later on converted to the shamlat after the settlement of 1917.
The effect of three summary settlements was unfortunate on the landed class
of the district. The cultivators were forced to be tenant-at-will rather than
occupancy tenants for fear of paying exacting land revenue. This was
however, to some extent remedied in the first regular settlement. The village
community was nothing but a disintegrated congregation of different classes
with vested interest mostly directed against each other. The binding force
was the liability for payment of the land revenue. The real Bhai-chara became
unknown.

From 1947 onwards
Over the time, the Thal Development Authority (TDA) became owner of 4 lacs
of acres roughly by acquiring 3/4th of land from old proprietors. The area
under acquisition was, however, reduced later and all areas which were
shown as cultivated in the crop inspection register of 1951 and those shown
as Adna-Milkiat were restored to the local owners. A formula for acquisition
was also fixed. The owners in the meantime sold out land unauthorisedly to
speculators who constituted a major class of land-holders. In some cases the
owners left their uneconomical land and occupied other better lands of the
state or the TDA. Likewise refugee settlers occupied lands which had been
acquired by the TDA. The TDA distributed the acquired land in the lots of 15
acres and 25 acres each to the peasant proprietors from different districts.
The rest of the area was auctioned. Tube well grants of 6 squares each was
also given to the allottees.

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