Jamrao Canal

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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.

Jamrao Canal

A large and important water channel in the Hyderabad and the Thar and Parkar Districts of Sind, Bombay. The canal takes off from the Nara river in the north-west corner of the Sanghar taluka and joins the Nara again in the extreme south of the Jamesabad taluka, the total length of the area irrigated being about 130 miles with an average breadth of 10 miles. The natural features vary. The upper reaches of the canal pass through the sandy jungle- clad hills along the Nara river, which give place to an alluvial plain, covered, where formerly liable to be flooded from the Nara, with thick jungle of kandi, babul, and wild caper bushes, and are succeeded by the wide open plains sparsely dotted with vegetation which are the characteristic feature of the country. The length of the Jamrao Canal is 117 miles, and, including all its branches and distributaries, 588 miles. This canal has one large branch, called the West Branch, 63 miles in length, and about 408 miles of minor channels.

The canal was opened on November 24, 1899, and water for irrigation on a large scale was admitted in the following June. The cost of the work was about 846 lakhs and the gross revenue of 1903-4 amounted to 6 lakhs, which gives a net revenue of 4.3 lakhs or 5.1 per cent, on capital outlay to the end of the year. The area irrigated in 1903-4 was 451 square miles. Large areas were available for colonization in the centre of the tract adjoining the canal to which water had never before penetrated, and over which no rights had been previously acquired. To these lands, colonists have recently been drawn from the Punjab, Cutch, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Kohistan, and the Desert. The area so far allotted to colonists, on the model of the Chenab Colony in the Punjab, amounted in 1904 to 116 square miles.