ABSTRACT
To achieve better control over the reclamation process, the Bengal government, under Regulation IX of 1816, appointed a Special Commissioner of the Sundarbans whose primary task was to administer the process of land reclamation. In 1853, the government announced revised rule for land grants in the Sundarbans. During the decennial settlement in 1791, the government resolved to shift the cost of maintaining the embankments to the zamindars again. With the gradual progress of reclamation, the English turned their eyes to other forms of economic activities and fishery was decided upon as a viable option. The Sundarbans today is the result of two different forces; the reclamation of forests to cropland, and the preservation of the forests for yield of wood products. Whatever be the changes that the Sundarbans underwent during the period late eighteenth to early twentieth century, it needs hardly to be stressed that the welfare measure for the peasantry were minimal.
