Question

The port of Surat declined by the end of the 18th century ?explain three causes. Short answer

Answer 1

(i) The European companies were gaining power by securing a variety of concessions from the local courts.
(ii) Some of the European companies got the monopoly rights to trade. All this resulted in the decline of Surat Port by the end of the eighteenth century. In the last years of the seventeenth century, the gross value of trade that passed through Surat had been ` 16 million. By the 1740s, it had slumped to ` 3 million. With the passage of time, Surat and Hoogly decayed, while Bombay (Mumbai) and Calcutta (Kolkata) grew. 
(iii) It was very difficult for the Indian merchants and traders to face the competition as most of the European countries had huge resources.