Annual Report on the General Administration of the Cooch Behar State (1934–35)
More actions
| Author | The Regency Council of Cooch Behar |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Composed | Forwarded to the Regent in July, after the year ended on 31 March 1935 (the year of the letter is not legible in the digitised copy) |
| Published | 1935 |
| Publisher | Cooch Behar State Press |
| Place | Cooch Behar |
| Volumes | 1 |
| Volume | (single volume) |
|---|---|
| Pages | p. 4 (§16); pp. 20–21 (Chapter V) |
| Chapter | Chapter V, "Excise Department" |
| Plates | none |
| Regions documented | Cooch Behar State, with its sub-divisions of Sudder, Tufanganj, Mekliganj, Mathabhanga and Dinhata |
| Preparations | Ganja |
| Uses documented | Excise duty; licence fees; consumption; prosecutions under the excise law |
The Annual Report on the General Administration of the Cooch Behar State for the Year 1934-1935 is the volume of the annual administration reports of the princely state of Cooch Behar for the year to 31 March 1935. Five members of the Regency Council submitted it to the Maharani, as Regent and President of the Council. It was printed at the Cooch Behar State Press in 1935.[1]: title page; forwarding letter Its excise chapter gives the year's figures for ganja, whose duty in the State moved with Bengal's.[1]: 4, 20–21
Written by the State's government for its Regent, the volume is evidence of how that administration reasoned about its revenue from intoxicants as much as it is a record of cannabis.
The volume
The Regency Council's Vice-President and its Revenue Officer each had direct charge of a list of departments, excise among the Revenue Officer's.[1]: 2 The excise chapter names four officers in charge of the department during the year. The Revenue Officer, Jatindra Mohan Sen Gupta, held it as Chief Excise Officer until he died in July 1934; two officers then held it in turn until the Revenue Officer, Karali Charan Ganguli, took charge on 12 February 1935.[1]: 20
Ganja in the excise accounts
The report's first chapter records the change in duty:
During the year of report the Bengal Government having raised the duty on Gunja from Rs. 40-4 to Rs. 40-12 per seer, the State duty was enhanced accordingly under the terms of the agreement subsisting with the Bengal Government.[1]: 4
The excise chapter gives the year's figures. Consumption fell from 17 maunds 34 seers 12 chittacks to 16 maunds 17 seers 14 chittacks. Duty on ganja fell from Rs. 28,769 to Rs. 26,808, "due to decreased consumption". Licence fees collected on ganja were Rs. 16,600 against Rs. 15,315. Revenue from outstills rose from Rs. 52,186 to Rs. 57,513 and duty on opium from Rs. 17,017 to Rs. 17,381. Collections came to Rs. 1,24,020; the report puts the incidence of the excise revenue at 3 annas 4 pies a head.[1]: 20–21 A table sets out the demand and collections of each sub-division: Sudder, Tufanganj, Mekliganj, Mathabhanga and Dinhata.[1]: 20
The State also received Rs. 2,295-10-3 from the Government of Bengal as compensation for transferring to it the excise administration of the isolated chhit lands of Cooch Behar territory within Bengal. There were three cases of violation of the excise law in the year; two ended in conviction and one was pending at its close.[1]: 21
In Ganja Matters (2026) the historian Utathya Chattopadhyaya, writing of the ganja cultivators' cooperative society of Naogaon in the later 1930s, states that it became the main source of supply in the "Cooch Behar System", "whereby Princely States in eastern India took responsibility for suppressing all ganja within their boundaries in exchange for receiving Naogaon's products duty-free".[2]: 220
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Cooch Behar State (1935). The Annual Report on the General Administration of the Cooch Behar State for the Year 1934-1935 (Report). Cooch Behar: Cooch Behar State Press.
- ↑ Chattopadhyaya, Utathya (June 2026). Ganja Matters: Empire and the Pursuits of Cannabis in British India. Oakland: University of California Press. doi:10.1525/luminos.276. ISBN 9780520425699.