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The Ryotwari system was introduced by Sir Thomas Munro and Captain Alexander Read in 1820 [6].
This system was in operation for nearly 30 years and had many features of revenue system of the Mughals. It was instituted in some parts of British India, one of the two main systems used to collect revenues from the cultivators of agricultural land. These taxes included undifferentiated land revenue and rents, collected simultaneously. Where the land revenue was imposed directly on the ryots (the individual cultivators who actually worked the land) the system of assessment was known as Ryotwari. Where the land revenue was imposed indirectly—through agreements made with Zamindars -- the system of assessment was known as zamindari. In Bombay, Madras, Assam and Burma the Zamindar usually did not have a position as a middleman between the government and the farmer.
An official report by John Stuart Mill, who was working for the British East India Company in 1857, explained the Ryotwari land tenure system as follows:
Under the Ryotwari System every registered holder of land is recognised as its proprietor, and pays direct to Government. He is at liberty to sublet his property, or to transfer it by gift, sale, or mortgage. He cannot be ejected by Government so long as he pays the fixed assessment, and has the option annually of increasing or diminishing his holding, or of entirely abandoning it. In unfavourable seasons remissions of assessment are granted for entire or partial loss of produce. The assessment is fixed in money, and does not vary from year to year, in those cases where water is drawn from a Government source of irrigation to convert dry land into wet, or into two-crop land, when an extra rent is paid to Government for the water so appropriated; nor is any addition made to the assessment for improvements effected at the Ryot's own expense. The Ryot under this system is virtually a Proprietor on a simple and perfect title, and has all the benefits of a perpetual lease without its responsibilities, inasmuch as he can at any time throw up his lands, but cannot be ejected so long as he pays his dues; he receives assistance in difficult seasons, and is irresponsible for the payment of his neighbours. . . . The Annual Settlements under Ryotwari are often misunderstood, and it is necessary to explain that they are rendered necessary by the right accorded to the Ryot of diminishing or extending his cultivation from year to year. Their object is to determine how much of the assessment due on his holding the Ryot shall pay, and not to reassess the land. In these cases where no change occurs in the Ryots holding a fresh Potta or lease is not issued, and such parties are in no way affected by the Annual Settlement, which they are not required to attend.[1]
Munro System was the system devised by the Governor of Madras, Lord Thomas Munro . He felt that the settlement had to be made directly with the cultivators or ryots who had tilled the land for generations . Their fields had to be carefully and seperatedly surveyed before the revenue assesment was made . Munro thought that the british should act as the paternal father figures protecting the ryots under their charge.