HO Indigo in Shahabad. 



The reader will perhaps pardon a slight digres- 

 sion here, whilst we briefly describe the famous Sone 

 canals. 



The magnificent scheme of Colonel Dickens, by 

 which Shahabad should be irrigated by a widely 

 ramified system of canals, which canals should also 

 be navigable, was presented to the Government of 

 India in 1855, but, obstacle after obstacle presenting 

 itself, the final sanction was not obtained until 1871. 

 Preliminary operations had, however, been in hand 

 since 1869, in which year the construction of the 

 Dehri-on-Son Anicut was commenced. The main 

 western canal having Dehri as its starting point, 

 though partly dug out to Chunar in the North- West 

 Provinces, remains still a long and expensive monu- 

 ment of Government folly and wastefulness. It has not 

 been completed beyond Bedadee, two miles west of 

 Sasseram, on the Grand Trunk Road. Except Bhabua 

 and the Rohtas Pergunnah in Sasseram Subdivision, 

 the other divisions of Shahabad have, by the con- 

 struction of the Sone canal, acquired a complete 

 immunity from famine. 



Briefly stated, the following facts are available re- 

 garding the Sone canal in Shahabad. The main 

 western canal has to carry 4,511 cubic feet of water 

 per second to irrigate 1,200,000 acres, only 600,000 

 of which require irrigation at one and the same time. 



