true of tube wells. Notwithstanding the differences in the local conditions, there is no province in India in which well irrigation might not be largely extended with advantage.

Tanks, like wells, comprise a great diversity of works, varying from storage reservoirs the distributary channels from which irrigate several thousand acres to works which irrigate a few acres only. Occasionally they act as regulators and storage reserves for canals, and sometimes their purpose is to maintain the water level in the wells in their immediate neighbourhood. The larger tanks are, with very few exceptions, government works as are the numerous small tanks in the ryotwari areas of Madras and in Bombay. Elsewhere, the smaller tanks are, for the most part, owned by village communities and by private individuals. 275. In our questionnaire, we specially invited suggestions for new irrigation schemes and for the extension or improvement of existing schemes. We also asked for mention of any local obstacles to the promotion of irrigation by canals, tanks and wells and for opinions as to whether the existing methods of distributing canal water to cultivators gave satisfaction. The views expressed by witnesses were not confined to these subjects and, as our enquiry progressed, other matters assumed. importance.

NEW IRRIGATION SCHEMES.

We have already explained the circumstances in which we refrain from comment on the suggestions we received in regard to new irrigation. schemes and the improvement of existing schemes. The technical advisers of the provincial governments are in a far better position than we are to pronounce on the feasibility of these suggestions and we trust that. they will receive due consideration. In these circumstances, we have only one recommendation to make under this head. It appears to us that no sufficient provision has anywhere been made for a systematic review of the position in regard to outstanding irrigation projects. For financial or other adequate reasons, it may be impossible to proceed. with a scheme, however promising, when it is first worked out. We consider that, until a definite decision to take no further action has been reached, the scheme should be periodically reviewed by the provincial Government. If this is done, any change in circumstances which makes it feasible to proceed with it will be brought to notice. If a definite decision is reached to take no further action by the State, a public announcement should be made of the reasons which have led Government not to proceed with the scheme.

EXTENSION OF PROTECTIVE IRRIGATION

276. As the result of the constitutional changes which followed on the passing of the Government of India Act of 1919,. irrigation, with certain limitations which will be mentioned later, became a provincial subject. administered by the reserved side of the local government. This alteration in the constitutional position removed the previously existing restrictions on the powers of the provincial governments to undertake protective schemes of irrigation. Prior to 1919, irrigation works were, from the point of view of their financial

results, divided into three classes; "productive works," the capital outlay on which had been sanctioned against loan funds in the expectation that the works would prove directly remunerative; "protective works " which were not considered likely to fulfil the conditions of a productive work but which were sanctioned against the Famine Fund on the ground of their protective value; and "minor works, " outlay on which was met from general revenues and which included all works which were not classed as productive or protective. Protective works were thus financed from the general revenues of the country. After the great famine of 1877-78, it was decided to set apart every year a sum of Rs. 150 lakhs, known as the Famine Relief and Insurance Fund, for famine relief, the construction of protective works, and the avoidance and reduction of debt. Of this amount, one-half, or Rs. 75 lakhs, was to be allotted to protective railways and canals; the charge on the Fund on account of protective railways, however, ceased to be imposed and the whole of the Rs. 75 lakhs became available for irrigation works. In 1910, the allotment was found to be insufficient for the programme of construction then contemplated and the Secretary of State sanctioned the provision of an annual subsidy not exceeding Rs. 25 lakhs for the purpose. The full allotment of Rs. 100 lakhs was, however, never worked up to; Rs. 86 lakhs were spent in 1913-14 and Rs. 84 lakhs in 1914-15, after which expenditure was restricted owing to circumstances arising out of the war. The expenditure of this amount was governed by the principles laid down by the Irrigation Commission. The Commission considered that, in general, it would be permissible to spend up to three times its direct "protective" value for each acre irrigated, worked out by à formula* which they suggested, to which might be added the capitalised value of the net revenue anticipated from each such acre, in payment of the water provided. The sum of these items was the so-called "permissible capital outlay per acre" and, in the case of every protective work submitted for sanction, it had to be shown that the permissible outlay would not be exceeded. The restrictions thus imposed were removed on the introduction of the Reforms. In cases in which local governments are unable to finance protective schemes of irrigation from current revenues or from the Famine

Where X

F

P

=

Pn

F

a

The direct protective value of an irrigated acre, or the capitalised value, at 25 years' purchase, of the saving in average annual cost of famine which will be effected by every acre brought under irrigation. Estimated total cost of famine in the given tract for a period of 25 years, or quarter of a century.

Population of the tract, with necessary addition for prospective increase.

n = Area in acres which should be protected by irrigation for each head of the population.

&=

Area in acres already protected.

The co-efficient 'n' was a variable one in each tract, but the Commission held that in insecure tracts, it would probably never be less than 0.3 or more than 0.5 and that other things being equal such as the character of the cultivation and the nature of the staple crops, the value of 'n' should diminish as the area normally cropped per head of population increased.

!

Insurance Fund which, under the Devolution Rules, they are bound to maintain, it is open to them to raise the funds required by loan provided that, if the project appears to the Governor General in Council to be one which is unlikely to yield a return of not less than such percentage as he may from time to time prescribe, arrangements are made for the amortisation of the debt. We trust that the recent relaxation of the rules on this point will encourage, so far as the financial situation may allow, the construction of further protective works.

WATER.

277. The evidence we received did not establish the existence of serious dissatisfaction amongst cultivators with DISTRIBUTION Or the present method of distributing water. It is true that we received complaints in regard to short supplies, arbitrary withdrawal of supplies and the like, but, in a business so extensive as the distribution of water in India has become, isolated complaints of this character are to be expected and are not in themselves sufficient to show that the system of distribution generally is at fault. We have, however, examined the question in some detail as it has an important bearing on the subject matter of our enquiries.

That there is an enormous waste of water by the cultivator in the canal-irrigated tracts of India is universally admitted. It has been estimated that the amount of excess water applied to crops such as wheat in northern India is from thirty to fifty per cent. The contrast in this respect between land irrigated by canals and land irrigated by wells is very striking. The waste of canal water is usually attributed to the fact that, when the cultivator lifts water from a well, he realises that he is paying in time and labour for every gallon he uses; when he irrigates his land from a canal, the water is provided for him and he pays not by the amount he uses but by the area he irrigates or, in the Punjab, by the area of the crop matured. He has, therefore, little incentive to economise water and to see that it is not wasted between the government channel and his fields. This is nct, however, the whole explanation. No small proportion of the wastage is due to uncertainty of supply. With a well, the cultivator has the source of supply entirely at his disposal and can, without risk, give a light watering if he considers that is all that is required; with canal irrigation, he often does not know definitely when the next watering will be possible; he, therefore, applies water in large quantities, in the hope that this will tide him over the period of unknown length during which it is not obtainable. Unfortunately, the evil effects of this uneconomic use of water are not confined to the wastage of water which could be used more profitably elsewhere; they often extend to definite damage to the soil. The marked deterioration of some ten per cent of the total area commanded by the Deccan canals in the Bombay Presidency must largely be attributed to this cause.

The problem of preventing this waste of water, of securing greater certainty to the cultivator as to the supply he will receive and of relieving him from any harassment and interference from the staff which records his irrigation has long engaged the attention of irrigation experts in India. The view taken by the Indian Irrigation Commission was that it

from 2.3 million acres in 1887-88 to an average of 10.4 million acres from 1921-22 to 1925-26 and vast tracts of precarious cultivation and even of actual desert have been converted into most fertile agricultural land, the possibilities of further expansion are far from exhausted. The Sutlej Valley project will, when completed in 1933-34, provide perennial irrigation for two million acres. It will also greatly improve the irrigation of another three million acres which are at present dependent on inundation canals, that is, on canals which have no weirs at their head and the supplies in which consequently fluctuate with the natural water level in the river. Of the area under perennial irrigation, over a million-and-a-half acres will be in the Bahawalpur and Bikanir States. This is the only large project at present under construction in the Punjab but other great schemes are under consideration. The Thal project, if carried out even on a much smaller scale than was at first contemplated, will command an area of nearly a million-and-a-half acres in the Sind Sagar Doab in the desert districts of Mianwali and Muzaffargarh. The Haveli project will bring perennial irrigation to an area of about 700,000 acres in tracts in the Jhang and Muzaffargarh districts. All these projects comprise weirs or barrages to raise the level of the water in the river bed.

The next stage in the exploitation of the Punjab river system will involve the construction of storage works. The Irrigation Commission pointed out that only six per cent of the rainfall is utilised in artificial irrigation, and that the rivers carry off uselessly to the sea a volume of water six times greater: on the other hand, they concluded that storage is so costly even in the most favourable circumstances that very few irrigation works which depend on it are remunerative."

66

The Sutlej Dam project proposes the construction of four storage reservoirs of which the first, the Bhakra Dam-400 feet high-would impound 112,385 million cubic feet, and add two million acres of rabi cultivation between the Sutlej and the Jumna rivers. A project for the utilisation of the Woollar Lake in Kashmir as a storage reservoir from which to supplement the supplies in the three linked canals at the commencement of the rabi season was prepared in 1915 but is at present in abeyance as it has not yet been possible to reach an agreement with the Kashmir Darbar.

It should here be mentioned that progress with the Thal project has been indefinitely postponed pending the settlement of the dispute which has arisen between the governments of Bombay and the Punjab in regard to the further utilisation of the waters of the Indus. We have no comments to offer on the merits of the question but, in a subsequent paragraph, we discuss the question of machinery for the settlement of disputes of this character.

270. As the agricultural problems of Sind are entirely different from those of the remainder of the Bombay Presidency, (ii) SIND. to which it is attached for administrative purposes, it is convenient to deal with it as a separate entity. The existing canals in Sind are entirely of the inundation type. It is only from May to September, when the Indus is in flood, that they provide water,