Abstract: The system of salt monopoly was introduced by Marcquis Cornwallis in the year 1790for the improvement revenue of the East India Company. The manufacture was carried on under the strict supervision of European agents. The principal salt agencies were Cuttack, Balasore etc.Salt became the subject of strict government control both in the manufacture and sale in Bengal. In the early nineteenth century, the British East India Company monopolised the salt production of in Orissa. By 1860s the external political and economic forces devastated indigenous salt industry and its workers and sought to create a new market for English salt in India. This necessitated a series of institutional reforms by the colonial government. The legal machinery formed the fulcrum of the colonial administration to enforce the salt monopoly. Salt, its manufacturing site and its marketsbecame public properties and the indigenous power centres were deprived of their landed and commercial interests of privileges and authority over it..
Keywords: Colonial State, Monopoly, Rule of Law, exploitation, and Subjugation
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