Nara, Eastern
Nara, Eastern, 1908
An important water channel in Sind, Bombay. It is commonly spoken of as a natural branch of the Indus, and, judging from the enormous size of its bed and the fact that it has no source, may possibly have been so formerly. The upper part of the Nara river, as it existed before works were undertaken on it by the British Government, was merely a small channel in the sand- hills of the eastern desert of Sind, through which spill-water from the Indus, above Rohri, found its way to the alluvial plain of the Indus in Central and Lower Sind. As much as 90,000 cubic feet per second was roughly calculated to have spilled into it during the flood of 1 85 1. Owing to the very uncertain supply thus received in the Nara, a channel from the Indus at Rohri, 12 miles in length, known as the Nara Supply Channel, was constructed by Govern- ment in 1858-9, on the recommendation of Lieutenant Fife. This channel was designed to carry an average discharge of 8,413 cubic feet per second during the inundation period, but at times twice this quantity has passed through it. The Nara river itself has re- mained untouched from the tail of the supply chanel to the jamrao Canal mouth, a length of 100 miles, and this length has been gradu- ally canalized by the silty discharge passing down it.
From 1854 to 1858 most of the depressions on the left side of the Nara between the Jamrao mouth and the present head of the Thar Canal were embanked, and in 1857 water, admitted as an experiment, flowed at least as far south as the embankments extended. Between i860 and 1867 the Nara bed from the Makhl weir to the Thar Weir was cleared in lengths aggregating 40 miles and widths averaging 150 feet. From 1876 to 1886 this work was continued below the Thar Weir. In 1884 the first cut was made by Government through the Allah Band, a broad ridge of ground on the Rann of Cutch thrown up by an earthquake in 18 19. The course of the Xara is generally southwards, crossing the territory of the Mir of Khairnur for a distance of 100 miles and then running through the Thar and Parkar District, having generally on its left bank the sand- hills of the desert, and discharging at its 250th mile into the Puran, an old channel of the Indus, which flows to the sea 80 miles farther south through the Rann of Cutch.
The principal canals in connexion with the Eastern Nara and their lengths, including branches, are — the Jamrao, 588 miles ; the Mithrao, 155 miles : the Thar, 72 miles; and the Hiral, 41 miles. The aggre- gate cost of these works (exclusive of the Jamrao) up to the end of 1903-4 amounted to 65-27 lakhs; the receipts in the .same year were 5-63 lakhs, and the total charges (exclusive of interest) 1-14 lakhs. The gross income was thus 8-62 per cent, on the capital expended, and the net receipts 6-82 per cent. The area irrigated was 429 square miles.
The Jamrao, constructed in the years 1894 to 1902, serves the Districts of Thar and Parkar and Hyderabad, and the others supply the former only. The Nara Supply Channel, the Eastern Nara, and the Mithrao are partly navigable for a total length of 425 miles.
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, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
