82 GRANT OF LOANS AND ADVANCES TO AGRICULTURISTS. 



exposed to famine. These concessions should generally take the simple 

 form of free grants of money, which may be fixed at a maximum of 

 one-half the total amount required, up to a limit of, say, rupees 500. 

 The localities in which these grants would be justifiable may be 

 characterised broadly as those tracts which have suffered severely in 

 any great famine, such as those of 1876-77, 1896-97, and 1899-1900, 

 and have not since obtained, by irrigation or otherwise, protection 

 sufficient to guarantee them against the recurrence of similar calami- 

 ties. There may 

 often be in such tracts better financial justification for the grant for 

 wells than for a canal depending upon storage. We do not, however, 

 contemplate the bestowal of free grants in every case even in such 

 a tract, but only when the concession is justified by the poverty of 

 the applicant, or where the margin of profit from irrigation is so 

 close that the concession will make the difference between profit and 

 loss to the irrigator. The proportion of the free grant to the total 

 sum required should, we think, vary with the circumstances both 

 of the tract and of the grantee ; and as the development of irrigation 

 in any tract progresses it will be reasonable to reduce that proportion 

 gradually to nil. We do not desire that taking of takavi should be 

 a necessary condition of receiving a free grant. Such grants should 

 be allowed to cultivators who are, although poor, thrifty enough to 

 provide the remainder from their own resources. 



208. Some witnesses have proposed that in precarious tracts a 

 bounty should be given on every well. The plan has the merit of 

 simplicity. But, provided that no inordinate difficulties are found in 

 determining the resources of the grantee, it may be doubted whether the 

 plan would be so successful in getting the maximum number of wells 

 constructed as that which we recommend. Our proposal restricts 

 grants to people of slender resources, and so encourages more people 

 of this class to construct wells with the aid of funds which under the 

 alternative scheme would go to people of ample means, some of 

 whom would make wells without Government aid. Other concessions, 

 such as postponement of comencement of repayment until the work 

 begins to be remunerative, partial remission of the sums advanced in 

 case of failure of the work, exemption of improvements from enhance- 

 ment, and so forth, are discussed in the chapter on private improve- 

 ments. For reasons assigned in paragraph 190, we deprecate advan- 

 ces of money free of interest, or at abnormally low rates, 



