IRRIGATION OF INDIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1024, 15 July 1930, Page 14

IRRIGATION OF INDIA

x DEVELOPMENTS IN PAST CENTURY HUGE WORKS IN PROGRESS j “What irrigation means to India” ! was the subject of an interesting address given by Rotarian J. B. G. Smith, to members of the Rotary Club at luncheon yesterday. The address was illustrated with lantern slides depicting the engineering developments in the watering of the country in the past century. The luncheon was presided over by Rotarian President C. J. Tunks. Rotarian Smith stated that India was primarily agricultural, and of nearly 90 per cent, of its millions engaged in this pursuit, 75 per cent, depended absolutely on the produce of the soil for their livelihood. The uncertainty and variance of the rainfall in that vast country could not be understood, except by people who had visited it; nor could people realise what it meant to the native people, whose sole thoughts were wrapped up in the weather, the water, their crops and cattle. Of the two main sources of water supply, the rivers and underground streams, the former were magnificent, but, except in certain parts of Bengal and Madras, the rest of India was very dry and arid. The rivers, which flooded three or four months a year, certainly benefited certain areas along the banks, but until British engineers had started irrigation developments, the bulk of the water flowed uselessly to the sea. There was a good subsoil water table that could be tapped very easily in various parts of India, but the difficulty was that the depth varied from five feet to 300 ft. Tube wells had been adopted to draw the water to the surface, but, on account of certain electrolytic interference, this system had not proved entirely satisfactory. DEPENDENT ON RAINFALL The country was almost entirely dependent. on the rainfall for its supply of water, but the fall was so variable, ranging from sin to 300 in. a year, that it could not be relied upon. For centuries past the methods supplementing the water supply had been very primitive, but in the past century the development of irrigation had gone ahead by leaps and bounds. The system involved the diverting of water from the natural flow of the rivers, and on to reservoirs. One of the greatest of these works, now in course of construction in South India, would hold up to 90.000,000,000 cubic feet of water. Its dimensions could bo gauged from the fact that the water it contained would cover 2,000,000 acres to the depth of one foot. Until about a j-ear ago the work had cost about £87.000.000. That work returned the Government not more than thi'eo per cent, on the outlay and produced about £100,000,000 in crops, so it could not be said that Britain was exploiting India.