Bari Doab Canal
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts.Many units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Bari Doab Canal
A perennial irrigation canal in the Punjab, taking off from the left bank of the Ravi, and watering the Districts of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, and Lahore in the Bari Doab or tract of country between the Beas and Ravi. The present undertaking originated in a project for the improvement of an older work, the Hasli canal, constructed about the year 1633 by All Mardan Khan, the famous engineer of the emperor Shah Jahan. After the occupation of Lahore in 1846, Major Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala) turned his attention at once to this project, and set on foot the necessary surveys. The progress of the work was interrupted by the outbreak of war. After annexation the work was pressed on, because the immediate construction of the canal was regarded as almost a matter of political necessity to provide employment for the disbanded Sikh soldiers, who, having their homes in the centre of the tract, would otherwise have had little encouragement to turn to agriculture. The alignment of the Hasli canal proved on examination to be so defective that the ofificers in charge decided upon the adoption of an entirely independent line, parts only of the original channel being utilized as distributaries. Irrigation began in 1 860-1, but the present permanent weir and other regulating head-works were not completed till after 1875.
The head-works are at the village of Madhopur in Gurdaspur District, where the river is crossed by a weir 2,700 feet long. The canal is capable of carrying 6,500 cubic feet per second : the highest average supply in the hot season is 4,850, while in the cold season it varies from 1,270 to 2,170 cubic feet per second. The main line terminates at its 31st mile, there separating into the Kasur and main branches. The Kasur branch 7 miles lower down gives off the Sobraon branch, and the main branch after 25 miles gives off the Lahore branch, the four branches following the crests of the ridges into which the tract is divided by its natural drainage. The total length of the main and branch canals is 369 miles, and there are 1,591 miles of distributaries, from which water is brought upon the fields by means of watercourses con- structed and maintained by the cultivators. The canal is not navigable.
The rainfall is heaviest in the upper part of the system, which has necessitated a special system of irrigation in Gurdaspur District and in the portion of Amritsar District north of the North-Western Railway on the Kasur and Sobraon branches. In that tract the distributaries are closed during the cold season after a watering has been given for sowing the spring crops, the winter rains with some help from wells being sufficient to mature those crops. The water thus set free has been utilized in extending irrigation in the driest part of Lahore District, where it borders on Montgomery — a tract for which it would otherwise have been impossible to provide a perennial supply. The gross area commanded by the canal is 2,710 square miles in Gurdaspur, Amritsar, and Lahore Districts. The lower portion of the Doab in Montgomery and Multan is not irrigated, as there is not sufficient water avail- able in the Ravi during the winter. The area irrigated was 297 square miles in i860, 677 square miles in 1880-1, 1,346 square miles in 1900-1, and 1,464 square miles in 1903-4. The total capital expendi- ture (exclusive of interest) up to the end of 1903-4 was 197 lakhs.
The gross income for that year was about 33 lakhs, or, inclusive of the increase of land revenue due to irrigation (which is credited to the canal in the accounts), 36 lakhs. The working expenses amounted to 11 lakhs, leaving a net profit of 25 lakhs, or 12-68 per cent, on the capital outlay.
