What kind of measures did the British take to improve agriculture? Did it have the desired impact? Give your reasons.

1. Permanent Settlement: Lord Cornwallis introduced permanent settlement, where the landlords were given the powers to collect the revenue from the peasants. The felt that in this way regular flow of revenue would be ensured and would also encourage the zamindars to invest more to improve the lands. But the zamindars collected rent from the tenants rather than revenue,(rent was higher than revenue) which in turn led the cultivators to leave the land and zamindars also became defaulters. Many zamindars lost their zamindari. Hence the settlement did not do much to improve the agriculture.

2. Ryotwari: Thomas Munro introduced Ryotwari system, ryots (cultivators) where the revenue were collected directly from the collectors. Necessary advances were also made to the cultivators to purchase the seeds. This proved effective and generated good revenue.