146 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



relative number of masonry works on the tanks con- 

 structed by them are of inferior workmanship and in 

 almost all cases without any pretension to elegance of 

 form or the beauty of structure. The channels, either 

 taken from a river to feed a tank or for cultivation; 

 have generally a great fall. The alignment is mostly 

 tortuous and not devoid of sharp curves. In almost 

 all cases the channels are taken off from a river with- 

 out any head works or regulating arrangements. Where 

 the channel crosses the natural drainage of the coun- 

 try, no masonry works for passing the surplus are 

 provided. High earth mounds are thrown up, trying 

 to block the stream at the entrance, as a consequence 

 of which the drainage, finding its way by a circuit, en- 

 ters the channel ultimately at another point and makes 

 a new entrance, which in course of time, working 

 against the channel banks, breaches them by over- 

 topping. The maintenance charges of keeping these 

 channels working must have been very heavy. The 

 lowest class of the ryots, called Dheds, of a village had 

 lands free of any assessment under certain irrigation 

 systems, who for the free gift had to clear every year 

 the channel of its silt, etc., before the rains set in. 



The diversion dams on rivers from where long 

 lines of channels are taken are constructed of cyclo- 

 pean stones of great breadth, mostly founded on rock. 

 These dams are in all cases not high and are of a 

 serpentine form. The Indian rivers carry a consid- 

 erable amount of sand and other debris, so that the 

 old dams have now been silted up right to the top. 

 Their ultillty is therefore greatly lessened and very 

 little flow at ordinary freshets passes down the chan- 

 nel. The use of a scouring sluice to avoid this evil 

 does not seem to have been understood by the ancients. 

 No irrigation sluices are provided in channel banks, 

 but water is taken by a small cut in it. Owing to the 

 entire absence of proper regulating arrangements for 

 the distribution of water, both from the tanks and the 

 channels, the wastage of water from them in olden 

 times must have been enormous, and up to the present 

 day great trouble is experienced by the irrigation offi- 

 cers to prevent this willful waste on the part of cul- 

 tivator. The quantity of water required to mature 

 a rice crop in the Nalgonda district of the Telingana 

 division is estimated at 120,000 cubic feet per acre for 

 a season, but in a certain case as much as 247,158 cubic 

 feet per acre was used. 



To sum up, the irrigation works of the old Hindu 

 rajahs show to a marked degree the utter disregard of 

 all knowledge of hydraulic principles. The reasons 

 why some of their works are working to the present day 

 is to be found in the fact that their successors, the 

 Mohammedan rulers, spent large sums of money every 

 vear to maintain them. The original cost of construc- 

 tion to the rajahs themselves must have in itself been 

 a great one, as most of their gigantic works, with our 

 present knowledge of the principles of irrigation, could 

 have been very economically constructed. 



With the advent of the Mohammedan rulers in the 

 beginning of the sixteenth century up to very late few 

 new irrigation works were constructed. The efforts of 

 the Mohammedan kings were mainly directed toward re- 

 pairing ruined works of their Hindu predecessors or 

 maintaining those constructed by the latter in an effi- 

 cient state of working. But after the conquest of the 

 "Deccan" by Aurazeeb, when, consequent upon the con- 

 fusion and anarchy into which whole India was thrown 

 at the decline of the Mogul empire, all progress was at 



a standstill, and naturally the irrigation works in Hy- 

 derabad came also to be neglected, so that they very 

 rapidly came to grief one after the other. When, there- 

 fore, the Nizams got possession of the country, in 

 1714 A. D., most of the magnificent old tanks and 

 irrigation systems had already ceased to work. 



As stated before, up to the time Sir Salar Jung 

 assumed office of the prime ministership of Hyderabad 

 in 1853 and insured for it a state of peace and tran- 

 quillity long unknown in the country, the irrigation 

 works received no attention. Sir Salar, having first 

 succeeded in dividing the country into sixteen con- 

 venient districts and appointing a collector for each, 

 in 1865 regulated the administration of the domin- 

 ions, instituted courts of justice, and then directed his 

 attention to the means of furthering the general ad- 

 vancement of the country. In Telingana he soon saw 

 that the only means of ameliorating the condition of 

 the cultivators was to restore the old irrigation works. 

 In 1867 he founded a public works department, and 

 entrusted to it, among other things, the restoration of 

 the irrigation works. From that year up to 1886 the 

 public works department received grants of money 

 simply to look to the normal wants of the Telingana 

 country, which only just sufficed. To save the exist- 

 ing revenue from irrigation works in the Teligana 

 division a board of irrigation was now created, of which 

 the chief engineer was also a member. Eight distinct 

 survey parties were immediately formed with instruc- 

 tion to survey works as may be directed by the board 

 and furnish plans and estimates for its sanction. 



The board had extensive powers of according sanc- 

 tion to carry out large works, and rapid progress was 

 soon made. The board was, however, abolished in 

 1893, and the prime minister himself considered all 

 projects and sanctioned large sums of money toward 

 irrigation works. The irrigation department, with the 

 increasing amount of its work, now required the serv- 

 ices of a special chief engineer to properly control and 

 direct it. In 1895 it was therefore separated from the 

 public works department and the Nizam's government 

 applied to the government of India for the services of 

 an experienced irrigation officer to take charge of the 

 department. The services of Mr. J. H. Medlicott, 

 M. T. C. E., from the Madras presidency, was lent to 

 the Hyderabad state through the courtesy of the gov- 

 ernment of India. The irrigation features of the 

 Madras presidency closely resemble those of Hyderabad ; 

 and. coming from the former. Mr. Medlicott was well 

 suited for the post. He was, however, soon recalled by 

 the British government, as his services were required 

 for special duty outside of India. 



To replace Mr. Medlicott the next selection of 

 government of India fell on Mr. P. Roscoe Allen, M. 

 T. C. E., also of Madras service. He assumed charge 

 of the office of chief engineer for irrigation on Janu- 

 ary 3, 1898. The five years of his tenure of this office 

 are a remarkable epoch in the history of irrigation of 

 Hyderabad, and we have, therefore, to examine at 

 some length the progress made during the period of 

 1898 to 1903. 



Mr. Allen was a man of untiring zeal and energy, 

 and he did for Hyderabad that good which no other 

 man with his opportunity and time was able to accom- 

 plish for it. He recognized the vastness of the work 

 entrusted to him and the scanty help he had at his 

 disposal to be able siiccessfully to cope with the sub- 

 ject. The irrigation staff, especially in the subordinate 



