LARGE IRRIGATION WORKS 159 



Rs. 5-8 would extinguish within that period a debt of 

 Rs. 100, whereas the perpetual charge would be Rs. 5, 

 or only 8 annas less per annum. No reasonable man, 

 as the Commissioners remark, would prefer the per- 

 petual charge for the sake of saving the 8 annas. 



The other recommendations of the Commissioners 

 refer to details of administration or to proposals for 

 alterations in the law ; the general principle upon 

 which all these recommendations are based is the 

 principle of removing all obstacles to the contraction 

 of a loan from Government. The policy now recog- 

 nised is that the Government should find the capital 

 for agricultural improvements, and should loan it to 

 individual cultivators at easy rates. 



But from time immemorial it has been to the State 

 rather than to private enterprise that the people have 

 looked for the construction of irrigation works on a large 

 scale. In the Rajput principalities of Bundelkhand 

 and Rajputana many lakes of great extent and beauty 

 have been constructed at the expense of the State 

 treasury. These lakes (or tanks, as they are called in 

 India) are formed by constructing a dam across the 

 natural drainage between two hills ; in the rainy 

 season the water which would otherwise escape into 

 the rivers is held up by the dam and the surrounding 

 hills, and spreads into a large expanse, which has the 

 appearance of a natural lake. The water is drawn off 

 by channels to irrigate the fields lying below the dam. 

 It is a popular belief that religious merit attaches to 

 the construction of these reservoirs, and it would be 

 difficult to deny this title to works of such beauty 

 and utility. In British Bundelkhand there are 

 several of these lakes, which tradition ascribes to 

 the Rajput princes who ruled before the coming of 

 the Mohammedans. 



It is, however, only in districts of a certain physical 

 configuration that the construction of reservoirs is 

 possible. It is also evident that the water available 



