KHA8IA AND GARO HILLS 



.-: 



Corpora. 



TACHAHDIA 



LA< t A 



Production 



BHI/. According t.. the A,l ministration Report (1901-2, SI), 

 is found over tin- ' t of hilly a Nagpor 



Division and overlapping the west of the Bardwan and the north of the 

 i Divisions. 'Ph.- principal lac factories aw in >f Kanchi 



.in. I Muiililiuin in tli.- ('hota N'jiL'pur Division, ;md in th Bankura and 

 Birbhum districts in the Bardwu; 1<--11- lac arc largely 



exported from Ranchi, Manbhum and Bankm 1- U also stated 



" the manufacture of shell-lac is an important in> Bankura 



district, and is chiefly carried on in the town of Sonamuki. The main 

 supply of this article for all the factories in Bankura is obtained from the 

 districts of the Chota Nagpur Division. The industry is carried on to a 

 large extent at Elambazar, in Birbhum. Shell-lac and lac-dye are also 

 manufactured at Mankur and Degnuggur in Bardwan ; but the industry 

 is on the decline here also. There is a lac factory at Cossipore in the 

 suburbs of Calcutta." 



Assam. In 1900, Basu (Agri. Dept. Indust. Bull. (ser. 1), 1900, No. 6) 

 wrote an account of the lac industry of Assam, from which the following 

 may be abstracted. " Kamrup and the northern part of the Khasia and 

 the Garo hills bordering on the Brahmaputra valley are at present the 

 chief seats of its cultivation. In Kamrup lac-rearing is chiefly confined to 

 the south bank of the Brahmaputra, the annual outturn of stick-! . 

 two mauzas (Rani and Chhayani) being estimated at about 2,000 maunds. 

 A small quantity is reared by a few Kachari families in tnauza Jhargaon 

 on the north bank. The bulk of lac exported from the district is, hou 

 obtained from Garos inhabiting the northern slopes of the Khasia hills, 

 who are said annually to bring in about 2,000 maunds of lac to the weekly 

 markets at Palasbari and Chhaygaon and about 300 maunds to the markets 

 at Boko. A small quantity of lac, averaging about 400 maunds a year, 

 is brought in by Bhutias to the annual cold-weather fairs at Darranga 

 and Subankhata in the north of the district." 



" In the Garo hills lac-rearing is chiefly confined to the north and 

 north-eastern parts of the district, comprised in the northern range of 

 the Garo hills Forest Division. The people of the south and south-western 

 parts are said to have a superstition against lac cultivation. The annual 

 exports of crude lac from the northern range is estimated at 1,300 to 1,400 

 maunds. In 1894 the Assistant Conservator of Forests, Garo hills Divi- 

 sion, estimated the annual production and export at 2,000 maunds, and 

 reported a serious decline in the cultivation of lac, which he attributed 

 partly to the low prices and partly to the depopulation of the district 

 through kala-dzdr and migration. Considering that the bulk of lac ex- 

 ported from the Brahmaputra valley is the produce of the Kamrup and 

 the Khasia and Jaintia hills and the Garo hills districts and that the exports 

 have during the past five years averaged over 16,000 maunds a year, the 

 foregoing estimates of outturn of lac in those districts would seem to be 

 much below the truth." 



Central Provinces. The lac insect is found throughout the Central C. Pror. 

 Provinces, but the main centres of collection are the Jabbalpur, Saugor, 

 Damoh, Nagpur, Raipur, Bilaspur, Sambalpur, Chanda and Mandla dis- 

 tricts. A Note on the Lac Industry of the Central Province* (Butt., 1902, 

 No. 8) gives useful particulars regarding production. The lac-collectors 

 and sellers in these provinces were given m the census as 2,592 persons. 

 Of the amount collected by far the greater part is exported, only a small 



1059 



. ' 





: ;-.,. 



- .; ..'. :.. 



Production. 



