View source for Kurnool-Cuddapah Canal

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This article has been extracted from <br/>

THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908.<br/>	

OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS.
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[[Category:India|K]]
[[Category:Places|K]]
''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.