 The village-based system entailed that organisations jointly owned a village and shared responsibility in some fixed proportion for the land revenues.The division of responsibility might be arranged by the amount of land held by each member (the "bhaiachara" method) or by ancestry (the "pattidari" system).Working with this village model enabled the British to impose a fixed revenue demand that was payable whether or not the land was cultivated and that gave landholders the right to sublet and otherwise manage their lands with minimal official interference.