158 AGRICULTURAL CAPITAL 



directed towards encouraging the cultivators to re- 

 ceive more loans from the State for agricultural im- 

 provements. They begin by insisting that a condition 

 of success is that all revenue officers should take an 

 active interest in the policy of State advances, for 

 unless sympathetically administered by the local 

 officers the measures they propose must remain in- 

 operative. With this caution they recommend : 



1. That the rate of interest on these loans should be 

 reduced to 5 per cent, in all provinces. 



2. That the collection should be made as elastic as 

 possible. 



It is alleged that the unpopularity of the takavi 

 S3^stem is due to the rigidity of the system of collec- 

 tion. The Commissioners accordingly recommend 

 'that suspension should be given without hesitation 

 whenever, from causes beyond the control of the 

 borrower, his crops fail to such an extent as to render 

 the payment of the year's instalment unduly burden- 

 some to him. That whenever suspensions of revenue 

 are granted, they should carry with them automatically 

 suspensions of the takavi instalment which may be 

 due the same year. That the officer who has autho- 

 rity to grant the loan should also have authority to 

 grant suspensions; and that the suspended instalment 

 should not be made payable in the ensuing year with 

 the instalment of that year, but that the effect of the 

 suspension should be to postpone by one year the 

 payment of all remaining instalments due on the loan.' 



The third recommendation is : 



3. The repayment of the loan should be extended 

 over a long period, the principle being that the repay- 

 ment of the loan should be extended over all the 

 period of the duration or 'life' of the improvement. 

 In cases in which, as, for instance, in the wells of the 

 Bombay Deccan, the improvements are practically 

 indestructible, the period for repayment should be 

 fifty years. At 5 per cent, interest a payment of 



