Question

What administrative changes were made by Alauddin Khilji?

Answer 1

1. Alauddin Khilji radically reorganised the Delhi Sultanate’s administration to strengthen central control and prevent revolt: he centralised revenue collection by appointing special officers, preparing proper records and fixing land revenue so the state could reliably plan expenditure, and increased the share taken from cultivators at times described as taking up to half the harvest as kharaj while depriving nobles of direct control over land and the right to levy taxes on peasants, so that revenue flowed to the crown rather than into private aristocratic coffers.
2. He created state granaries and improved irrigation (canals) to check hoarding and protect agrarian supply, and he recruited a corps of revenue inspectors and market supervisors (with spies) to enforce a detailed system of price controls on essential commodities so that soldiers and commoners alike could afford necessities and the large standing army could be maintained on relatively low pay.
3. To curb noble power and potential conspiracies, he restricted nobles’ marriages without royal permission, confiscated the property of disloyal chiefs, banned gambling and alcohol for officials, and regulated the quality and ownership of military assets (for example, inspecting and branding horses) while rewarding troops after successful campaigns.
4. His judicial and welfare measures: establishing courts and qadis in important places, abolishing extreme corporal punishments in practice, founding towns and public works (baths, mosques, rest houses, hospitals), and instituting charitable provisions for the poor, all measures that both consolidated state authority and addressed public welfare under a tightly controlled, centrally administered system.