Shahpur Inundation Canals
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.
Shahpur Inundation Canals
A system of inundation canals in the Punjab, fed from the Jhelum river and mainly situated in Shahpur District. About sixteen of them are owned by private persons and six by Government. Of the latter, three are classed as Imperial and two as Provincial, while one, the Pind Dadan Khan Canal in Jhelum Dis- trict, has recently been made over to the municipal committee of Pind Dadan Khan for management.
The three Imperial canals lie wholly in the Shahpur tahsil^ and are developments of a canal dug in 1864 by Colonel Sir William Davies, to supply water to the civil station of Shahpur. In 1870 Government acquired this canal and added two new canals, The Imperial canals command an area of 105 square miles and irrigate 50 square miles a year on an average, yielding a net revenue of Rs. 50,000, or 24 per cent, on the capital outlay. Of the two Provincial canals, the largest is the Ranlwah, an old native canal which had fallen into disuse and was reopened in 1870-1.
It com- mands 72 square miles in the Bhera tahsil and irrigates 30 square miles annually, yielding a net revenue of Rs. 11,000. It has ex- tinguished its capital cost and yielded a net profit of 4-1 lakhs to Government. The Corbynwah, constructed in 1879, irrigates about 4,500 acres, mostly grass lands, in the Khushab tahsil on the right bank of the Jhelum.
The Find Dadan Khan Canal does not pay expenses, but it supplies the town with sweet water. It performs a small amount of irrigation as well, the area irrigated in 1904-5 having been 395 acres. The private canals have a total length of about 227 miles and irrigate 87 square miles. Many of them are old canals which had silted up and were re-excavated, under Sir Donald McNabb and other Deputy- Commissioners of the District, by owners or lessees to irrigate their own lands. They also irrigate the lands of other persons on payment of a water rate. As noted in the article on the LOWER JHELUM CANAL, most of these inundation canals will cease to exist as such when the Shahpur branch of the Lower Jhelum Canal has been constructed.
