The Mahalwari system was one of the three revenue systems implemented by Britishers. Under this system, the land revenue was collected from the farmers by the village headmen on behalf of the whole village, not the zamindar. The entire village was converted into one bigger unit called “ Mahal” and was treated as one unit for the payment of land revenue.
The revenue was to be revised periodically and not fixed permanently. The system was popularized by Lord William Bentinck in Agra and Awadh and later on, extended to Madhya Pradesh and Punjab.
A major drawback of this was that the survey was practically based on faulty assumptions which left a space for manipulations and corruption.
Consequently, this system was regarded as a failure.