functionaries of the state, the surveyors of the land called naduvagaiseykira too hailed from the landholding communities. Various units of the land measurement such as kuli, ma, veli, patti, padagam, etc. are known, with local variations. Generally, taxes were collected in different forms.
The taxes collected included irai, kanikadan, iraikattina-kanikadan and kadamai. An important category of tax was kudimai. Kudimai was paid by the cultivating tenants to the government and to the landlords, the bearers of honorific titles such as udaiyan, araiyan and kilavar. The tax rates were fixed depending on the fertility of the soil and the status of the landholder.
Opati were levied and collected by the king and local chiefs. Temples and Brahmins were exempted from paying the taxes. The tax paid in kind was referred to as iraikattina-nellu. All these were mostly realised from the Kavery delta but not widely in the outskirts of the kingdom.
At the ur (village) level, urar (village assembly) were responsible for collecting the taxes and remitting them to the government. At the nadu level, the nattar were responsible for remitting taxes. Paddy as tax was collected by a unit called kalam ( kg). Rajaraja I standardised the collection of tax.
He collected kalam from the land of one veli (about . acres), the standard veli being variable according to fertility of the soil and the number of crops raised. Irrigation Cholas undertook measures to improve the irrigation system that was in practice. As The irrigation work done by Rajendra Chola I at Gangaikonda Chozhapuram was an embankment of solid masonry miles long.
Rajendra described it as his 'jalamaya jayasthambham', meaning “pillar of victory in water”. The Arab traveller Alberuni visited the place a hundred years later. On seeing them he was wonder-struck and said: ‘“Our people, when they see them, wonder at them, and are unable to describe them, much less construct anything like them”, records Jawaharlal Nehru in The Glimpses of World History. XI History - Lesson - - Later Cholas and Pandyas