Birth of the Rajasthan (IGNP) Canal

The Radcliffe Award of 1947 that drew the Indo-Pak boundary caused considerable disappointment in Pakistani circles. They started taking concrete action to undo the Award by digging a cut from the loop of the river Sutlej which entered Pakistan territory, before entering the Ferozepur Head Works. This operation was reported by our Intelligence staff and was interpreted as an anti-gun trench. When I saw the report, it became quite apparent to me that it was an attempt to modify the Radcliffe Award. Immediately, a move was made by the Government of Bikaner that in the face of West Punjab trying to bypass the Ferozepur Head Works, we should be prepared to meet all the eventualities. As a temporary measure, it was decided to increase the supply through a creek which was located in the East Punjab territory.

In the note submitted by me to the Government of Bikaner at the end of June 1948, a definite suggestion for constructing head works at Harike was brought up for the first time. A relevant extract from the note is reproduced below:

“The permanent remedy to the threat would be to practically shortcut the Ferozepur Head Works. During the S.V.P. negotiations the Bikaner government had insisted on the Head Works being constructed at Harike Pattan just below the junction of the Sutlej and Beas rivers. This Headwork may almost be a duplicate of the Ferozepur Head Works in all detail.

A Canal may be taken off from Harike to irrigate areas right down to the Bikaner border. About 24 miles below Harike, a link may be taken to feed the present Eastern and the Gang canals.

In addition the following areas can possibly be irrigated from the Harike Head Works:

                                                                               

                                                                                                                                Acres

1) Grey Canals                                                                                                     3,20,000 

2) Faridkot State                                                                                                 1,90,000

3) Sirhind Canal area

     between the Proposed Harike

     Canal and the Gang canal                                                                           9,10,000

4) Area that can be commanded

    from this canal in the Bikaner

    State                                                                                                                   12,00,000 

This area would considerably benefit as abundant non-perennial supply could be given from Harike. Later on, it will be possible to make the canal perennial.....

Harike Head Works once constructed would provide a permanent and important control to the Dominion of India over the supplies of the Beas river. Harike is about 20 miles from the Pakistan border and is not so easily vulnerable to enemy action as Ferozepur Head Works is at present”.

The above idea was further pursued in the following months and resulted in the conception of one of the largest irrigation projects of the world. A preliminary report was submitted to the GoI (Ministry of States) on October 29, 1948. The conclusions and recommendations of the Report made as far back as October 1948 have a prophetic ring and are reproduced below:

“The proposal to irrigate more than seven million acres of desert land  in the Biakner and Jaisalmer States may appear to some as a fantastic dream. So have appeared practically all the bold entreprises of the world to those who do not have the courage to venture into untrodden paths. The Suez and Panama Canals also were at one time such fantastic dreams. The Tata Hydro Electric System - the largest in South East Asia- stands as a monument to the ‘unpractical’ dream of a great man. The Boulder and Grand Coules Dam projects in the USA are the fulfilments of what appeared to be mere dreams.

 I have a conviction, which has grown out of my 18 months’ asociaition with this desert that the dream of seeing these great deserts where hardly anything grows at present, converted into thousands of square miles of fertile lands, will come true in less than quarter of a century.”

Excerpted From: Reminiscences of An Engineer, Dr. Kanwar Sain, Young Asia Publications, Delhi, 1978  

More About Dr Kanwar Sain