26
have held, calculated on the number of mares covered during the previous year,
I have added a column to show this:—
N. W. Provinces ...
North Punjab ... ...
South Punjab ... ...
Derajat ... ...
Baluchistan ... ...
Deccan ... ...
Guzerat ... ...
Sind and Cutch ...
No. covered.
1894-95.
3,041
2,953
2,249
1,260
1,893
628
150
498
Number
held.
759
887
612
425
890
227
76
88
Average per stallion
employed
1894-95.
8.7
18.11
13.74
...
16.76
11.46
9.80
5.23
1895-96.
9.73
15.8
12.0
20.2
22.25
12.64
14.15
6.41
Percentage
of mares
held.
24.95
30.0
27.21
33.73
47.01
36.14
50.66
17.67
118. For the first time we have been able to show the working of Balu-
chistan; this is due to the fact that zilladars were appointed on 1st April 1895.
119. The general working is still unsatisfactory, but must be attributed to
the fact that most unreliable statistics are received from the zilladars.
Unreliable sta-
tistics.
120. The Government of India in their Resolution on the working of this
Department for the year 1894-95, in remarking on the reported results of cover-
ings, state that this may be in part due to the incompleteness of the statistics
and that the efforts which have already been made, not without success, to
improve the accuracy of the returns, should be strenuously continued.
121. This I feel to be more than ever necessary owing to the disclosures
which are frequently made to me. I feel that, generally speaking, the zilladars
are unreliable, preferring, as they do, to obtain information second hand, which
is frequently unreliable, rather than to take the trouble to visit the village in
which any particular mare is to be found; to demonstrate this, I might state
that one zilladar actually wrote to one of the syces of this Department direct-
ing him to find out the results of certain coverings.
122. This important subject has occupied my close attention during the
past year, and I introduced a check on zilladar's returns in the North-Western
Provinces which proving highly satisfactory was also introduced into the Punjab,
with the sanction of that Government. To explain the system of checking
these returns, I extract the following directions issued to the Superintendents,
Civil Veterinary Department:—
(a) Select from the covering and produce returns furnished by each
zilladar, say five or six mares of each tehsil, and submit the same,
through the Deputy Commissioner, for verification by the tehsil
officials.
(b) It will not be necessary to apply this check oftener than twice
a year at odd times.
(c) Zilladars who are found to have submitted false returns should be
at once reported to this office with full details of the false entries
discovered.
123. The work entailed in carrying out this most important check is but
trifling, as each Tahsildar is only asked to enquire into 10 or 12 cases during the
year, but the results are already excellent, as they prove undoubtedly that the
zilladars have entered false results in order to obviate the trouble connected
with the inspection of mares. As it is now known that these periodical checks
will be carried out, it must lead to more accurate statistics being obtained, still
I feel that improvement in this direction must be gradual and be the work of
time.
124. It will be seen that the strictest scrutiny of the work carried on by the
zilladars has been carried on during the past year; each case in which any one