Kurnool-Cuddapah Canal
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.
Kurnool-Cuddapah Canal
An irrigation and navigation canal in jMadras, which takes off from the Sunkesula dam across the Tunga- BHADRA, 17 miles above the town of Kurnool, and runs for 190 miles through Kurnool and Cuddapah Districts into the Pexner (which is dammed at the junction), and thence to the town of Cuddapah. The canal is a product of the policy, formerly in favour, of attracting private capital and enterprise from England into the field of Indian irrigation. It was constructed by the Madras Irrigation and Canal Company, a body incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1858. This Company originally proposed to execute in the Deccan Districts and Nellore a number of other large irrigation works, the main ideas of which were in part due to Sir A. Cotton; but as it speedily fell into financial difficulties it was required first to complete this canal, and none of the others was ever begun.
It worked under a guarantee from the Secretary of. State of 5 per cent, on a capital of one million sterling, but by 1866 over £(;oo,ooo had been spent and the canal was still incomplete ; £600,000 was then obtained from Government by debentures, but by 1 87 2 the whole £1,600,000 had been expended and the canal was still unfinished. The undertaking was eventually bought in 1882 by the Secretarv of State for £1,700,000. It has never been a success. Its alignment was faulty ; its construction was defective, so that in places it will not pass even one-half the quantity of water which it was designed to carry ; and it runs through an area in which, owing to the great fertility- of the soil, it pays the ryots better to raise crops without irri- o-ation than to undertake the expensive system of cultivation which is necessary to the growing of rice or other irrigated crops. The net revenue from the work is therefore only Rs. 67,000, which is insufficient to pay even ^ per cent, on its capital cost. The navigation along it is negligible in amount. The protection it affords in bad seasons to the extremely arid area through which it runs is, however, of great importance ; and, when rain fails, water is freely taken from it. Several projects are also under contemplation for the utilization, by branch canals, of its water in areas where it will be more readily availed of; and it may perhaps be possible to strengthen it sufficiently to enable it to pass into the Penner a supply which would augment that now derivable from that river for irrigation in Xellore District.
