Note 7 — INTRODUCTION.
Reading edition
Fiscal.For fiscal purposes each district or sarkár was distributed among a certain number of sub-divisions or parganáhs, each under a paid official styled ámil or tahsildár. These sub-divisional officers realised the state demand, nominally one-half of the produce, by the help of the headmen of the villages under their charge. In the sharehold and simple villages of North Gujarát these village headmen were styled patels or according to Musalmán writers mukaddams and in the simple villages of the south they were known as desáis. They arranged for the final distribution of the total demand in joint villages among the shareholders, and in simple villages from the individual cultivators.7 The sub-divisional officer presented a statement of the accounts of the villages in his sub-division to the district officer, whose record of the revenue of his whole district was in turn forwarded to the head revenue officer at court. As a check on the internal management of his charge, and especially to help him in the work of collecting the revenue, with each district governor was associated an accountant. Further that each of these officers might be the greater check on the other, king Áhmed I. (a.d. 1412–1443) enforced the rule that when the governor was chosen from among the royal slaves the accountant should be a free man, and that when the accountant was a slave the district governor should be chosen from some other class. This practise was maintained till the end of the reign of Muzaffar Sháh (a.d. 1511–1525), when, according to the Mirăt-i-Áhmedi, the army became much increased, and the ministers, condensing the details of revenue, farmed it on contract, so that many parts formerly yielding one rupee now produced ten, and many others seven eight or nine, and in no place was there a less increase than from ten to twenty per cent. Many other changes occurred at the same time, and the spirit of innovation creeping into the administration the wholesome system of checking the accounts was given up and mutiny and confusion spread over Gujarát.8