CHAPTER II. 



GRANT OF LOANS AND ADVANCES TO AGRICULTURISTS. 



[Extracts from the Proceedings of the Governor General's Council , 

 dated the 30th December, 187 OJ] 



SIR JOHN STRACHEY said : 



A system of advances of this description, under the name of takavi, 

 had been in force in many parts of India almost from the commencement 

 of our rule, and there were, in several old Regulations passed at the 

 end of the last century and the beginning of this, some seventy or eighty 

 years ago, many provisions bearing on the subject. These old laws 

 authorized, under certain conditions, the advancing of Government 

 money for agricultural improvement, and in some parts of India the 

 system had been acted upon to a very considerable extent. The 

 security on which these loans were made was complete, because the 

 security was the land itself on which the improvements were carried 

 out, and the advances were declared by law to be recoverable by the 

 same processes as were applicable to the recovery of arrears of land- 

 revenue. The provisions of these old Regulations had, however, been 

 found to be very incomplete; and, as might have been expected, 

 they were hardly suitable in many respects to the circumstances of 

 the present times, and besides it was thought very desirable to conso- 

 lidate the whole law on the subject. This would be a further step 

 towards the carrying out of the great scheme of the consolidation of 

 the statutes of this country which his Hon'ble and learned friend 

 Mr. STEPHEN had in progress. 



The Government believed that the principle of giving the assistance 

 of the State to private persons for the purpose of carrying out works 

 of permanent agricultural improvement was one that might with great 

 advantage receive a much wider and more systematic development 

 than had hitherto been given to it. The works for which these 

 advances would be made were not at all great works requiring 

 engineering skill, but works of improvement within the capacity of 

 the proprietors and occupiers of the land themselves, with such little 

 help from the authorities as might be necessary. These works would 

 be for the most part such works as wells and small drainage works, 



