Page 58 - Muzaffargarh Gazzetteer

Layyah Kot Addu Muzaffargarh Alipur Total
109539 149888 280352 280352 726477

Working of the Settlement
When the new assessment was imposed, the Thal was desolate, and the
demand was pitched low so that the tract might be given an opportunity to
recover. The justice of the assessment was demonstrated by the general
recovery of the whole Thal during the next 20 years. Throughout the rest of
the district there was a general complaint by the revenue payers against what
at the time of assessment was probably the most admired feature of the old
settlement: the elaborate assessment by wells. At settlement it was assumed
that, as a rule, the characters of the wells were permanent, and that it was
safe to grade them and to place very heavy assessments on the best ones.
This assumption was not justified in the peculiar circumstances of
Muzaffargarh, where the area sown and the kinds and quality of the crops
were determined not by the well, but by the flood supply, whether direct from
the rivers or through the canals. Wells could not be worked during the
summer, and the Kharif harvest was entirely dependent on the floods; in the
Rabi, the area sown varied with the amount of the flood; and, whatever it
might be, the crop would not be profitable unless the well was upheld by
sufficient rain. In such circumstances, since the flood supply was in most
estates very different from what it was at settlement, almost the only wells of
which the grading was correct 20 years after settlement were those
immediately around the small towns, where the crops were dependent rather
on the plentiful manure which was available, than on the water-supply. In
the Layyah riverain tract, most of the wells at settlement were those close to
the river bank, and, owing to swing of the river to the west, then got too little
flood, and were rather the worst in the circle. In the Kot Addu Pacca circle
cultivation had changed from moderate wheat to good rice followed by gram,
and the grading made at settlement had ceased 20 years later to bear any
relation to reality; though, since as a whole, the circle had greatly improved,
the revenue was so light that its unequal incidence was of little practical
importance. In the Nahri Thal circle, though the change in cropping was less
marked than in the Pacca, the grading was by then almost equally wrong,
though there too had been marked improvement, and the incidence was of
little practical importance. In the Kot Addu Indus circle the construction of
protective embankments and of canal escapes, together with the clearance of
much jungle, had changed the conditions of the circle and, generally
speaking, the worst wells in 1923 were the heaviest assessed. Further south
in the Indus circles of Muzaffargarh and Alipur, the general tendency of the
river had been to withdraw towards the west, and the well assessments in
1921-22 were seldom correct. In the Chenab circles of the two southern
tehsils, the river had been swinging to the west: while, on account of the
extension of perennial irrigation in the Punjab, the floods were less

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