INDIA'S GREAT DAM

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 16, 19 January 1924, Page 16

INDIA'S GREAT DAM

VAST' IRRIGATION PLAN.

Sir George Lloyd, Governor of Bombay, inaugurated on 24th October tho wprldV greatest irrigation scheme, when, in the presence of a large gathering of officials and prominent Zemindars of Sind, he laid the foundation of what is to be known as tho Lloyd Barrage at Sukkur. In his inaugural speech the Governor reviewed tho whole history of the many attempts that had been made to convert a great, waterless tract into a land of rich harvests,', start- , ing as long ago as 1859. These efforts, said the Governor, finally resulted in the submission in iy2o qf the present project, which met with a less lingering and more triumphant fate than its many predecessors, for now the. work .of construction was actually j being started. The successful solution of a problem, which for over half a century had resisted all attempts to solve it, reflected lasting. credit 'Upon Aim officers of the Public Works Department i and upon' the Revenue officers of the Indian Civil Service. ' : Dwelling in greater detail on the stupendous nature of the works involved. His Excellency mentioned that the Bar- i rage' would provide for, ths cultivation : of an urea equal to that of any iive of Che larger English countries, and that of the three great canals that would carry off on the right bank the waters of the Indus, two! were wider than the Suez Canal, \vhiie the Rohri Canal on the left bank would be nearly half as broad again as the Suez Canal. The system on the left bank involved the building of one supply channel more thari' double the width of the Manchester Ship Canal. They-might form some idea of ' tho volume of water thus made available for irrigation .purposes, when they realised that o*nc alone of the canals on the right bank would have a discharge not far short of tho maximum discharge of the1 River . Thames. The barrage itself. would cost nearly £1,000,000 moro than the Assouan uam. ' .