INDIAN IRRIGATION

Hokitika Guardian, 14 January 1932, Page 5

INDIAN IRRIGATION

AREA TO BE TRANSFORMED.

MEMORABLE EVENT TO-MORROW

(British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, January 12

A memorable event in Indian history will take place to-morrow, when the Viceroy of India, Lord AY ilkngdon, will open the world’s largest irrigation system, the Lloyd Barrage, in Sukkhur, with seven huge canals, whereby a sun-parehed area as large as England, will be turned into agricultural land.

The whole province of Sind is practically a rainless one, so that this supply of water from a river which flows through its length is absolutely vital to most of its 3,500,000 inhabitants.

One of the most notable achievements of the British in India and one that is most olten overlooked, is the conversion by irrigation of waste lands into fruitful lands.

The present scheme has occupied eight years. The Lloyd Barrage is several miles long. It has several arches, each being 90 feet wide. The waters of the river, which is flowing from the Himalayas into the sea, will be harnessed to supply the rich soil of the province by 700 miles of canals, some of them being wider than the Suez Canal, with private channels serving 35,000 miles. The scheme makes possible the cultivation of six million acres, and the estimated value of the crops to be produced therefrom will approach thirty millions sterling, The cost of the scheme is approximately fifteen millions sterling.