Debate in Bombay Legislative Council on Sukkur Barrage Project (On 8^th & 9^th June 1923)

8 June 1923                                                               

(Sir Chimanlal Setalvad)

The Honorable Sir CHIMANLAL SETALVAD: Mr. President, I beg to move that this council approves of the sukkur barrage project as sanctioned by the secretary of state and recommends to the Governor in Council that the work should be commenced as soon as possible.

        Mr. President, I may at the outset assure the Council that in view of the fact that a large mass of literature has been supplied to the members of this House about this project and which I assure they have carefully studied, I do not propose to weary them with any Lengthy consideration of the complicated technical points involved in the scheme. I will lay the issue before the House in as simple a manner as possible and in a manner intelligible to the ordinary lay mind, and I am sure, Sir, that when so presented the question before the House is really of a very simple character at least so far as the necessity and urgency of the barrage scheme are concerned. Agriculture is in many countries the main industry; in India it is all important but in Sind it is the only means of livelihood. Speaking, Sir, in Poona, the capital of the Deccan, it is not necessary to speak of the benefits of irrigation but I do wish the Council to realize that the conditions in Sind are entirely different from the conditions in the Deccan. In the Deccan irrigation is no doubt an inestimable advantage but is not an absolute necessity as large tracts of the country are served by the ordinary rainfall during the monsoon time. In Sind it is entirely different; there the ordinary rainfall is so scanty that agriculture cannot depend upon it. The cultivation in Sind depends entirely on the waters of the Indus and, therefore, the province of Sind can, without irrigation, only support a population on the inundated tracts along the edge of river. The remainder of the province could only support nomadic tribes eking out a precarious livelihood by grazing sheep, camels and cattle and obtaining a scanty crop when rain sometimes happens to fall.

          That being the condition in Sind, it has been found necessary from time immemorial to practice irrigation. Prior  to the British occupation of Sind, canals were excavated by enterprising landholders, but owing to disturbed conditions and lack of communal interest and scientific Knowledge, those attempts were not such as to really tackle the problem. Under the British Government the problem of extending irrigation in Sind has been systematically taken up. Most of the canals in Sind, as members are aware, are merely inundation canals, and the supply of water by their means is always dependent upon the vagaries of an ever-changing river. High inundation floods the country, low inundation beggars it, and normal it never or very rarely is. If it were possible to pick out any individual factor and say that on it was dependent the difference between a ten anna and a sixteen anna crop, undoubtedly that factor would be the last waters that you can get for your crops. But, often, the unfortunate cultivator in Sind has the misfortune of seeing a most promising crop wither because the height of the river is not sustained quite long enough. Any Sind zemindar can tell you many tales of distress and penury owing to the accident of the action of the Indus river causing the month of his canal which irrigates his land to silt up, and the loss is not limited to the years in which the water supply is bad, for, by the time normal conditions revive the zemindar finds himself crippled financially, his courage is sapped and his confidence is shaken. It is no wonder if he decides to let a year or two elapse before he again tries fortune. It has been often said of the Sindhi that he is not a good agriculturist, but, this imputation, I submit, is not deserved. It is true he produces poor crops, but, it is due mostly to the vagaries of the inundations. If you assure him a good and regular supply of water, there is no doubt that he will produce the highest classes of crops.

      Long experience, Mr. President, therefore, has demonstrated, beyond any doubt, that the only way to put Sind on its legs is to ensue for it a fixed supply of water at a non-fluctuating level and provide perennial canals is place of the inundation ones. The people of Sind naturally look with jealousy at the construction of large perennial canals in the adjoining provinces of the Punjab and the United Provinces, and they mournfully regret that they should not be given advantages which are freely bestowed on those provinces. The fact is that Sind has never yet had a chance given to it to develop, and it cannot be expected to do so until an assured supply of water is made available to it. How this is to be accomplished has been a matter of consideration for many years, and the result of such consideration and investigation is the present project of the barrage and canals at Sukkur that is now submitted to this Council.

        Before I come to the main features of the project, I may be permitted shortly to state the history of the scheme. The matter was investigated as early as 1847 lieutenant Colonel Walter Scott, who considered that a dam between Sukkur and Rohri was necessary. Later, General Fife, after whom Lake Fife in the Deccan has been named, applied himself to it, and his proposals approximated very largely to the present project. In 1892 a committee was appointed, but it really led to nothing. Then consideration was given to the matter b the Irrigation Commission of 1901, but they too did not advance the cause much further. From 1904 to1910 the matter was investigated in greater detail, and a complete scheme of barrage and canals was forwarded by the Bombay Government in 1910 to the Government of India. The Secretary of State, to whom this scheme was submitted, placed it before a committee of engineers in London in 1912, and that committee rejected the scheme of 1910, and the Secretary of State recommended to the consideration of the Bombay Government and the Government of India various considerations and suggestions that were made to him by that committee. A new committee was convened in 1915, over which the Inspector, General of Irrigation presided, and was composed of experienced engineers of Bombay and Sind. In accordance with the recommendations of that committee the present project has been evolved in great detail. A combined scheme was worked out by Mr. Musto, and he was placed in charge of it, and a special committee consisting of Messrs. Baker and Lane worked out a thorough soil survey for determining suitable crops to be grown and the rates to be charged. The outcome is the finished project of 1920, now submitted for the sanction of this Council.

          The present project, Sir, I may inform the Council, consists of (1) a barrage across the India below the gorge at Sukkur, and (2) two great systems of canals one on each bank of the Indus. The left bank canal will consist of one main new canal called the Rohri canal and a new supply channel to the present Eastern Nara system. Three separate canals will be constructed on the right bank, two of which will be perennial and the third for rice only. The Rohri canal for a distance of 45 miles will run through the Khairpur State, and there will be constructed two feeder channels called Khairpur East and Khairpur West to serve lands in that State, and the Khairpur State, as honourable members are aware from the papers circulated to them, is contributing its share towards the construction of the barrage .

         The complete scheme will irrigate 59 lakhs of acres out of a gross command of 81 lakhs and a culturable command of 71 lakhs. The area at present irrigated in the tract is 23 lakhs of acres and that in the whole of Sind is 35 lakhs. The project will provide for 5 lakhs acres of more cultivation annually than there is at present in the whole of Egypt.

          The barrage under the present scheme is to be placed below stream of the Sukkur gorge. In the project of 1910, it was placed up stream of the gorge and this was rejected as the foundations were very treacherous and there was a serious danger of an avulsion of the river above the gorge. The new site which is about three miles below the gorge is altogether free from this danger, as the calculations show that with a flood 50 per cent, greater than the highest ever recorded, the rise at the barrage will be only one foot and the effect of this at the gorge three miles further up will be negligible. The barrage will consist of 66 spans each of 60 feet clear opening divided by masonry piers 10 feet thick, giving a total length of 4,925 feet. Between the openings will operate steel sluice gates 63’*181/2’ weighing about 50 tons each. The piers support a double series of elliptical arches, carrying decking side by side and one below the other. The lower and wider one will form a roadway. The object of the barrage is to give the steady water level required by the canal regulators and to maintain their heads clear of silt. The regulator sills are higher than the sills of the barrage to prevent silt entering the canals and any silt that accumulates in front of the regulators will be swept away through the barrage by the operation of its gates.

       In the right bank canal system, besides the two perennial canals, there will be a separate canal for the rice area: because it is impossible to work a canal satisfactorily if the khariff and Rabi discharges differ greatly which would be the base if the rice areas place in the perennial canals. This central rice canal has a length of 87 miles, is 133 miles in main branches, and 343 miles in secondary branches, distributaries and minors. It will run from April to September, and will be closed during the remaining months, and will irrigate 493,000 acres. The north –western perennial canal will irrigate the lands to the north and west of the central rice canal. It will be 97 miles long with 117 miles of main branches and 535 miles of secondary branches, distributaries and minors, and will flow all the year round. The south eastern perennial canal will irrigate lands to the south and east of the central rice canal. It will be 140 miles long with 66 miles of main branches and 373 miles of secondary branches, distributaries, minors, etc.    

    Of the left bank canal system, the Rohri canal will be the largest of the four on that side. Its length will be 198 miles with 206 miles of main branches and 2,300 miles of secondary branches, distributaries and minors.

      The Eastern Nara Channel will take new supply from the barrage to feed the existing Eastern Nara river which will thus be canalized for a length of 242 miles. All the existing branches (the Jamrao, the Mithrao and Thar, etc.) will be remodeled and improved and a new one the Kipro branch will constructed to irrigate the tract particularly forlorn in the present conditions. The Jamrao, the Mithrao and the Thar will assured of a steady supply throughout the irrigation seasons. The Thar will become a purely rice canal running from April to September.

      When such a large amount of irrigation has to be done, the question of adequately draining all the water from the land so as to prevent the evils of water logging is a very important one and has been very carefully considered. A great system of main and branch drains is provided. On the right bank there will be 115 miles of main and 280 miles of branch drains. On the left bank there will be 8 main drains.

          I do not propose to ask the Council to enter into a consideration of the criticisms that have been made from time to time on the present project. It should be sufficient for the Council to know that the best engineering experts at the disposal of the Bombay Government and the Government of India and the Secretary of State have, after full consideration, declared themselves in favour of the project, and it would be idle for laymen to proceed to decide a technical question. But I will refer to one criticism and suggestion that had been made, namely, that you can have the Rohri canal without a barrage, or that in any event, the construction of the barrage might be postponed till after the canal had come into operation. This suggestion was fully considered and rejected by a consensus of expert and official opinion. The barrage is indispensable even for the Rohri canal to assure the rabi crops, and it enormously cheapens the cost of that canal. Without barrage the canal would have to be differently designed as the supply will depend on the natural river level, and whenever the barrage is built, the canal will have to be reconverted at further expense, quite apart from the fact of disorganising the methods of cultivation. It has been argued that if the construction of the barrage and canals is undertaken simultaneously, the barrage will, when complete, remain unused for years. This is not correct as in the 7^th year (the 1^st year the barrage operates) it will assure in round figures one million acres of new cultivation. Further, the construction of the barrage is essential to ensure a supply to the right bank canals which did not form part to the 1912 project, and the Eastern Nara system which with the system as now proposed will together irrigate annually over three and one-third million acres. Without the barrage, the system is liable to fail completely in a bad year and the resulting disaster to Sind cannot be contemplated. If the barrage were delayed, none of the new canals will irrigate the areas then commanded.

       Similarly, the controversy regarding the location of the barrage must be taken to have been set attest. The site below the gorge has been pronounced to be the best site for the purpose.

        I will refer shortly to the financial proposals which have furnished to the members regarding the scheme. As honourable members are aware, be the resolution passed by this Council in October 1921, the Government of India was requested to give financial assistance towards the barrage in the shape of bearing a certain proportion of the interest charges. It was pointed out to the Government of India, how the Central Government would very largely benefit by the barrage. This Council is aware that the Government of India have declined to accede to our request for financial assistance. They fully admit that if there had been no reforms they would certainly have taken up this project as an Imperial liability, but they say that under the Reforms Scheme, Irrigation is a provincial subject and the local Governments must be responsible for the financing of irrigation works. They have however undertaken to lend the necessary funds year after year to this Government for the purpose of financing this project, out of their loan monies. The total estimated cost of the project is a little over 18 crores of rupees and this. Presidency has to provide for the expenditure and the interest charges. How that is proposed to be done has been fully set out in this Government’s letter of 19^th October 1922, which has been placed in the lands of the members already. I do not, therefore, Sir, propose to go over the same ground that has been covered in that dispatch. As members are aware, the interest charges are proposed to be met as follows: Firstly, by an assignment of Rs.10 Lakhs out of the famine grant. That is perfectly justified. Honourable members will bear in mind that the barrage, so far as Sind is concerned, is a protective work although it is also productive, and the assignment of ten lakhs asked for is quite proportionate to the contribution of Sind to the revenues of the province and to the famine Insurance Fund; secondly, by the sale of lands as water is available or in advance, if required. And thirdly, out of capital if necessary. Because if would not be possible, as members will realise, to begin to sell your lands early, with the result that sufficient money would not be realised until the scheme progresses. When the scheme progresses and water is available and portions of the canal have been constructed better prices would be got for the lands. Therefore we will have to hold up the sale of lands for some time during which time we will have to spend out of capital. Hitherto, the practice has been to give land almost free to the zamindars in Sind. It is no longer possible as conditions have materially altered. The prices that the different classes of land to be sold may be expected to fetch have been carefully forecasted by an office who has a very close and intimate knowledge of Sind and its conditions. Enquires recently made show that the sale programme proposed is a very modest one and can be readily worked up to. The crop rates for flow irrigation are based on the recommendations of Messrs. Baker and lane and approved by the Commissioner in Sind. The outturns on which they are based represent average crops in a normal season with an assured water supply. The rates proposed are an advance over the present rates, but it must be remembered that the zamindar will get in return an assured supply instead of the present precarious one and that the existing rates are below the settlement standards of other provinces. The higher rates will come into force in each section, as it becomes open, and the ten years’ periods will count in each section from that date. Honourable members will see from the figures worked out in the papers supplied to them that the project will earn about 6 per cent., in the 13^th year rising steadily to 10.4 per cent, in the twenty-first year. Credit for the famine grant is only taken up to the twentieth year, and land sales stop in the twenty-sixth. Thereafter the project earns double the 6 per cent; it is required to do by the most recent orders of the Secretary of State. The whole project is estimated to take twelve years to complete, and it is expected that the period will not be exceeded.

         Mr. President, I think it is necessary for me to refer to certain misapprehensions with regard to the effect of the project particularly with regard to the fuleli canal. Fears are entertained with respect to: ---

     Firstly, the rabi cultivation at the tail of canal;

     Secondly, the irrigation of the garden lands some 4,000 acres on both banks of the the canal; and

     Thirdly, the withdrawals by the Sukkur Barrage scheme causing such a drop in the water level at the month of the Fuleli as seriously to endanger its kharif supply.

         Further, it is apprehended that the canals below the Fuleli may be adversely affected. I may at once assure the Council that after thorough investigation, Government are in a position to say emphatically that kharif cultivation will not suffer. As regards rabi cultivation, it consists of ordinary bosi rabi which is only watered up to December, and perennial rabi which takes water when available after December. Bosi rabi about 13,000 acres will be quite unaffected by the barrage project. The perennial rabi about 26,000 acres is a comparatively recent institution on the Fuleli and was occasioned by there being no kharif supply in the tail. In former years, it was all kharif and the zamindars will therefore gladly revert to that crop. When the barrage and the new canals come into operation a large supply of water will be set free in the Fuleli. As regards the garden lands on the Fuleli, these are safeguarded on the left bank, as they will be irrigated direct by the new Rohri canal. As regards lands on the right bank of the Fuleli, irrigation can and will be guaranteed by passing into Fuleli the quantity of the water required. The improvements of the canals below the Fuleli will be systematically taken up, and their supply will not be affected.

            As regards the apprehensions about the drop of the water level at the mouth of the Fuleli, Government are assured that there will be no appreciable drop whatever, on the contrary a gradual increasing rise.

          Reference is necessary to the area in Upper Sind north of the Sukkur Barrage tract. The Begari canal will be directly benefited by the barrage programme. Proposals for improving irrigation facilities in the northern area on the left bank of the Indus are being considered. All the small canals below the Begari will benefit early and late in the irrigation seasons by the barrage.

         There is anxiety in certain quarters about what is known as the Mohag rights of the zamindars. It is far from the intention of Government to ignore these traditional rights in the policy of land sales to finance the project. All genuine cases, where injury would be done by selling lands adjoining present holdings will be and are being fully considered, and Government have set aside no less than 350,000 acres or 25 per cent , of unoccupied land to be sold at the extremely low figure of Rs.15 per acre ‘malkhano’.

         Fears are entertained that small zamindars will be deprived of their holdings by the large areas taken up by the new canals. In all cases where the whole or a large portion of a zamindar’s holdings is so a absorbed, it is intended to offer him other land in exchange if he prefers to have it.

         I think, Mr. President, I have taxed the patience of the Council sufficiently by trying to put before them the main features of this project. I have submitted that it is essential for the development and progress of Sind to provide perennial irrigation, instead of the present fitful inundation irrigation. I have shown that the scheme in its financial aspect is sound in bringing a very large return coming up to over 14 per cent of the capital outlay. But this is only the direct return to Government on the scheme but the benefit to the cultivators and people of Sind by bring into cultivation millions of acres now lying idle, will be enormous.

         Further, it must be borne in mind that it is a great thing to ensure a perennial supply of water even for the areas now under cultivation. It will be interesting to the Council, Sir, to know that in a bad inundation year the value of the normal crops lost comes to a very big figure indeed. Taking the example of the year 1919, when the crops failed owing to low inundation, the value of the crops so lost in one year has been at the lowest estimate put down at 15 crores of rupees. Two such bad years will absorb more than the whole of the cost of this project. But, Mr. President, in view of the development in irrigation that are taking place in the Punjab, the providing of the barrage is essential for the very existence of Sind cultivation. It must be realised by the Council that the Sutlej, the Thal, and other schemes that are now being projected in the Punjab with great energy will draw enormous quantities of water from the Indus before it flows into Sind. The anticipated result is, on expert calculation, that there will be a drop in the river level from one foot in June to over three feet in September, thereby shortening the inundation period in the beginning be three weeks and in the end by two weeks, with disastrous consequences for Sind. The Council, therefore, Sir, has to realise that this project is necessary not only for the further development of Sind by bringing into cultivation large areas of land that are lying uncultivated, but in order to preserve the cultivation from serious injuries by the withdrawal of water by the Punjab, it is absolutely essential to have this project for the very existence of the province of Sind. And in the and I truest honourable member will realise what an enormous difference it will make not only to Sind, but to the whole of the province or Presidency if you have this project taken in hand at once. Any members who may have taken the trouble to study what beneficial effect a perennial supply of water has had in the Punjab will see how crops in the Punjab have by that process been more than doubled, how the value of the crops has been more than quadrupled and how the value of land in the Punjab has risen from about Rs 12 to Rs. 15 an acre---ordinary land---to about Rs.60 or Rs.75, and very good land in the Punjab is now sold for as much as Rs.(Figure inaudible). Sind has the same natural advantages as the Punjab has, but, as I have said, its requirements and its needs have been neglected and it is only by pushing through the project before you that you can do your duty really by Sind.

          The honourable member for Thana denounced the project in the newspapers as being one for the advantage of a few big and rich landlords. The honourable member, I believe, is happy in his ignorance which makes him rush in where other will fear to tread. He was possibly misled by the word “zemindar” which to his mind denotes big zemindars like the Maharaja of Darbhanga. But a zemindar means any landholder, however poor or however small his holding may be, and this project, Mr.President will benefit thousands of small cultivators in Sind and not merely big landhords, as the honourable member for Thana imagines.

           Mr.G.B TRIVEDI: Can you tell the number of small cultivators who will benefit?

    The Honourable Sir CHIMANLAL SETALVAD: 200,000 I am told, but it may be more.

          Mr. President, Sind has waited too long for this project. It has now been under discussion for the last twenty years. I would tell you earnestly it can wait no longer. As pointed out by my honourable friend the member for Sukkur in moving his resolution in October 1921, Sind has always been a self-supporting province and it expects and feels that the Presidency will come to its rescue and sanction, without any further delay, this project, which, as I have pointed out, is essential not only for its progress and development, but for its very existence. This Council, Mr. President, has during its tenure of office now nearing its close, shown, if I may be permitted to say so, great wisdom and foresight in shouldering responsibility in carrying through measures of great public utility. It has passed an enactment for free and compulsory education in this Presidency. It has passed large measures of local self-government both for the city of Bombay and the mofussil. It has tried to conserve the financial interests of the Presidency by enforcing a policy of retrenchment and by not hesitating to impose taxation when necessary. I am sure, Mr. President that this Council will add to its brilliant record by resoling to undertake this project, fraught, as I have said, with such beneficent consequences not only to the province of Sind, but also to the whole of this Presidency, which ultimately benefit, on the calculation put before the honourable members, to the extent of a crore and a half every year by a return of net profit very year of that amount. I do hope, Sir, the Council will pass this project without any further delay.

         Mr.G.M.GANDHI(Sunat City): How is it that the lands are proposed to be sold to zemindars at Rs.15 an acre which are likely to fetch value at about Rs.200?

        The Honourable the PRESIDENT: I should like to point out to honourable members that the rules and standing Orders in regard to resolutions apply to this resolution also. There is a fixed time-limit for speeches, but I realise the importance of the subject and will not strictly enforce the time-limit. I hope, however, that honourable members who take part in the debate will bear in mind that their right to speak extends only to fifteen minutes and that they will regulate their speeches accordingly.

Dewan BAHADUR K.R

      Dewan Bahadur K.R. GODBOLE (Poona District) Mr. President, I wish to address the Council on the important resolution that has been placed before it. While speaking on it I will develop certain points and after development of those points I propose to move an amendment to the resolution.

       The Honourable Member in charge of Irrigation has placed before the Council this importance scheme and all salient point in connection with it. I am quite at one with him in thinking that Sind should have this perennial irrigation scheme carried out in the interests of the province as early as possible. (Hear, hear) The United Provinces and the Punjab are reaping untold advantages by the erection of similar works in their areas and I do not see why our poor Sindhi brothers should be deprived of similar advantages. (Hear, hear) Hitherto the Province of Sind has been served by what are called inundation canals. These inundation canals and the cultivation under them are gamble on inundation. Just as the cultivation of the Presidency proper is a gamble on rainfall, the cultivation in Sind is a gamble on Indus inundation. If the inundation is normal and if it lasts for four months in the year or about that time, then all the areas under the inundation canals are properly cultivated and give good crops, but it is very seldom that the inundation is normal. Very often inundation is low then the inundation canals do not work satisfactorily and cultivation all round suffers. Sometimes the inundation very high in which case the country round about gets flooded. So it is desirable that the surface level of the Indus should be brought under regulation so as to keep it as a point from where irrigation can go on efficiently and successfully throughout the area commanded. The cultivation as practiced at present is Sind in confined to four months in the year only, that is, while the inundation season lasts. There is no cultivation at other times of the year and that puts the Sindhi at a very great disadvantage. I therefore think that the barrage scheme as worked out by expects of this Government, of the Government of India and of the Secretary of State should be accepted by this Council as a sound scheme from the constructional point of view. It might be accepted as a safe engineering scheme but the paying character of the scheme will have to be carefully considered. This Sukkur Barrage scheme was considered by a committee of experts in London in 1913 at the instance of the Secretary of State. This committee has given its opinion that the scheme will not pay and was not required. After this, as already explained by the Honourable Member in charge the scheme was taken up a new by the Bombay Government. It was reinvestigated and after further examination the Bombay Government came to the conclusion that it was a paying scheme. There are some points which I wish to place before the Council, however, with reference to the paying character of the scheme as placed before us. As I said, the scheme as an engineering work is acceptable, but let us see its financial side. In the first place it is to be financed from loans from the Government of India at actual rate of interest paid by that Government. Then the Government want that the famine insurance fund in this Presidency should contribute two crores and ten lakhs of rupees to this scheme in the shape of an annual contribution ten lakhs of rupees. And the third source is money realised by sales of land. This huge scheme is going to bring a lot of additional land under cultivation and it is proposed to let this land out for cultivation and to sell the owner’s occupancy rights of the same. It is expected that these land-sales will bring in twelve crores and sixty lakhs of rupees; the Government propose to utilise the whole of this twelve crores and sixty lakhs of rupees as capital in the construction of the scheme carrying interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum. The scheme is thus going to be financed from land sales, from the famine insurance fund of the Presidency and from the Government of India loans taken from time to time as required. Government proposes to commerce land sales in the second year after construction commences. The sales of all the lands will be completed in 25 years after the works are started.

          As regards the paying character of the scheme the different percentages of net earnings that will be realized in different years have been place before us. Now the point which I want to bring to the notice of this Council is with regard to the labour required for the additional cultivation and irrigation that will be brought about by the proposed perennial canals. They want additional population for cultivation work. In the tract which is to be served by the proposed canals the present population is about 2,000,000 and the present cultivation is 2,036,000 acres. This means that we have one acre cultivated at present in this area per head of census population. Now in the case of the new cultivation it is going to be twelve months cultivation and not four months cultivation as at present. The amount of labour required will be much larger, as the work will be more continuous. The additional population required for the large additional irrigation is therefore a problem that will have to be faced. Form the figures of the last census I find that in the whole province of Sind the population in 1891 was 2,875,000 and in 1921, i.e., after 30 years, it became 3,279,000 souls, which shows that there was an increase of only a little over four lakhs in the whole province of Sind in the last 30 years. In the irrigated area that is going to be served by this project, the present population in 20 lakhs; at the end of 30 years, the population will probably be 23 lakhs if we take the same basis of increase as was actually observed in the population of Sind during the 30 years ending 192. The present cultivated area is 2,036,000 acres. Eighty-one per cent. Of this area is going to be annually cultivated, as assumed by the framers of this project, which gives, 5,308,000 acres as the area to be irrigated and cultivated per year. Now, as I said, the population of the tract to be served by the barrage and its canals will probably be 23 lakhs at the end of the 30 years commencing from 1921, which the population required for the efficient cultivation of the 5,308,000 acres under the barrage will be about 40 lakhs instead of the 23 lakhs which we will have athe end of 30 years after the commencement of the project. This is a difficulty which in my opinion will prove a difficult one to surmount. The answer will probably be that the population required will come from outside, from the Punjab, from Baluchistan and so on, but we are all selfish mortals and we are going to develop the land in Sind by means of perennial irrigation for the use of Sindh is as far as possible. It is our own people that should be benefited by the developed and irrigated lands and importing colonists from outside should be strictly limited to the actual requirements of education our own cultivators. Looked at from that point of view, I think the labour question will be in the way of the full attainment of the whole of the additional revenues in the periods assigned in the financial forecast placed before us. This is one of the points I wanted to place before the Council.  The other point to which I wish to refer and on which the framers of this project are placing their reliance is that 81 per cent. Of the culturable are that will be under command will be brought into cultivation annually. It seems to me, Sir, that this is too high a proportion to take. We should not assume that out of every five acres that are commanded four acres will be actually cultivated every year and only one acre should be left for fallow land, for grazing of cattle and so on. The experience of all of us is that a larger proportion out cultivable areas must remain uncultivated. I believe that is also the experience in Sind. To assume that every four acres out of five will be under cultivation always is too much of an optimistic assumption.

          Another point which I have just ascertained is that in perennial irrigation like that which we are instituting in Sind; there are certain limits beyond which crops cannot be economically cultivated. The irrigation will be somewhat, I take it, on the lines of irrigation practiced in Egypt from the Nile Barrage. Whatever has happened in Egypt is likely to happen in Sind also. The information that I have obtained as regards Egpyptain cultivation in irrigated tracts is, that the lands can only bear wheat in one year out of three. The framers of the Sukkur Barrage report assume that wheat will be grown year after year. The actual experience in Egypt is that the land can only bear wheat in one year out of three; that the land can bear cotton in one year out of three and that these crops are cultivated in Egypt in a three-year rotation. First year, I am given to understand, they grow cotton from April to October; then in the cold weather they grow Berseem. In the second year there is no crop in the kharif season and in the rabi season there will be wheat and in the third year there must be again a fallow and there will be a maize crop. That is the rotation practised on Egyptian canal.

         The Honourable Mr. H.R.LAWRENCE: Where?

          Dewan Bahadur K.R.GODBOLE:  That is the substance of the latest bulletin issued by V.M.Mosseri, Technical Adviser to the Sultane agriculture Society. This is the information which I desire to place before the Council; and I think I have some justification in thinking that the assumption that 81 per cent. Of the land that is going to be under command of the new canals will be under cultivation year after year is an assumption that is too optimistic.

         An Honourable MEMBER: What should be the correct estimate?          

         Dewan Bahadur K.R.GODBOLE: That is a matter for experts to decide. I think it ought to be about 66 per cent.

         Another objection that I have to the scheme is that by throwing a barrage across the Indus, we will destroy the navigable character of the river. What we want in the interests of the development of Sind is not only additional cultivation but cheap transit. There are of course the railways but in addition to them we want facilities for water transport. The barrage across the river will prevent boats from going across. I therefore think that the Council should insist upon Government providing a lock at the barrage fro navigation. We want the barrage, the Rohri canal, and the right and left bank canals, but, at the same time, we want the Indus to be kept navigable throughout the year to Kotri and to the sea. I think the Council will do well therefore to insist upon Government providing a lock at the barrage, which will permit of the navigation of boats of 500 to 600 tons capacity throughout the year.

        Honourable members are aware that the amount of Rs.18 crores 36 lakhs is not the only burden that is going to be placed on our shoulders by this scheme. We have to bear an expenditure of Rs.19, 36,000 for the road bridge which will have to be met from provincial funds. Also the framers of the project estimate the cost of the work for complete drainage and protection from Kirthar Hill floods of irrigation on the right bank canals at Rs.2 crores and 25 lakhs. Out of this Rs.78, 31,000 has been provided for in the present project. But what about the remaining Rs. 1 crore 48 lakhs? The framers of the project say that this will be an agricultural work to be carried out from agricultural funds, which will mean another call on the funds of the Presidency. The Council will do well to bear this in mind. I cannot say why the framers of the project did not include this amount of one crore and 48 lakhs also in the cost of the whole project and make it Rs.20 crores instead of the estimated Rs.18 crores and 36 lakhs. Why not be straight forward about it and say at once “We must have this protection against Kirthar Hill floods, and therefore we will add Rs.1 crore 48 lakhs to the cost and ask the Council to sanction Rs.20 crores instead of Rs.18 crores and 36 Lakhs”?

        Then there is the point of land sales. The framers of the project say that is the sixth year 35,000 acres will be sold at Rs.50 per acre. This appears to me to be rather too optimistic, and certainly does not lean on the side of a conservative calculation. I may point out that irrigation schemes when they are first calculated are always forecasted to be very paying. In the case of this Sukkur Barrage scheme, we are told that in the third year after completion it will pay 6.13 per cent, that in the twentieth year it will pay all arrears of interest charges, and that eventually the project will pay 13 to 14.6 per cent. What I want to bring to the notice of the Council is that already we have got a number of irrigation works constructed in Sind. I have just been over part II of the Irrigation Revenue Report for 1920-21 containing the results of the working of the Jamrao canal, the Dad Canal, the Nasrat canal, and other works. Now in the case of the Jamrao canal which was expected to pay handsomely when projected we actually find that in 1920-21 it has been worked at a loss of Rs.4,38,000, that the Dad canal has been worked at a loss of Rs,1,07,000 and the Nasrat canal at a loss of Rs.1,57,000. Out of the nineteen works given in the list which are supposed to be productive eleven have been worked at a loss and it is only eight that show a profit. For these reasons, I think that we would be justified in asking that Government should proceed with caution in the execution of the present scheme. For the efficient development and growth of Sind we want this scheme, but there is no object to be gained by showing optimistic bright results; we must go on conservative lines. I think that, instead of attempting to carry out the whole project at once, it should be carried out in stages. For instance, I would construct the Sukkur Barrage and the Rohri canal first. The Sukkur Barrage is going to cost Rs. 3 crores 42 lakhs and the Rohri canal Rs.4 crores 12 lakhs; the khairpur canal heads will cost about about Rs.20 lakhs. So what I would say to Government would be let them construct the Sukkur Barrage, Khairpur Canal heads and the Rohri canal at first at an estimated cost of about 8 crores of rupees. The Rohri canal is a very large canal of 205 miles in length, and it will tax all the energies of the construction engineers in the first years of construction. Let them confine their attention to the Sukkur Barrage and the Rohri canal in the first years of construction. After the Rohri canal irrigation develops, we will have opportunities of judging whether land will be taken up readily for cultivation purposes, on the new canals, whether the requisite population will collect from time to time as required and whether land sales will be effected according to forecasts. The experience we will gain will help us in finding out the drawback if any in the present estimates and calculation and if we are satisfied that there are none, then we can commence the construction of the canal on the right bank and of Eastern Nara improvements. The Government can construct the barrage first but must reserve for a later period the construction of some of the projected canals.

         The honourable the PRESIDENT; I do not wish to interrupt the honorable member, but I wish to draw his attention to the fact that the time limit provided in the rules is 15 minutes. I have already allowed 30 minutes to him as the subject is an important one and the honourable member is trying to bring forward important and interesting points. I have already allowed him double the time he is entitled to and I hope he will see his way to curtail his remarks as much as possible.

         Dewan Bahadur K.R. GODBOLE: What I am going to propose is exactly the proposal that was made by one of the Commissioners of Sind, in 1910. Mr. Lucas wrote to Government that the barrage and Rohri canal should be first constructed and last of all the Right Bank canals. I think that was a very sound advice. There are two incidental advantages which will accrue to us, if we follow the procedure that I indicate. The first is that after the construction of the Rohri canal, people will realise the value of perennial irrigation and the value of land will go up and better prices will be realised in land sales than now anticipated. The second advantage that will incidentally accrue will be that if we proceed slowly, the rate of interest for the later portions of our borrowings will be favourable to us. The rate was 6 ½ per cent. Last year, this year it is 6 per cent. and the next year it will probably be 5 per cent. There will be nothing lost by proceeding slowly. We will gain experience and secure the advantages mentioned. With these words, Sir, I support the resolution, but wish to place the following amendment to it before the Council:-

           “Add the following words to the resolution:

           ‘This Council however recommends 1^st that a suitable lock be provided at the barrage to keep the Indus navigable from Punjab to Kotri, and to the sea.

             2^nd, that the project be carried out in staged the experience gained in initial stages being utilised in modifications, if considered necessary, in carrying out further works and in competing the same.”

      This is the amendment I wish to move to the resolution for reasons already explained in my speech.

     Mr.M.A.HAVELIVALA: Will the discussion be on the amendment only?

        The Honourable the PRESIDENT: The resolution and the amendment will be discussed together.

Mr.G.B. TRIVEDI

      Mr.G.B. TRIVEDI (Thana District): Mr. President, I quite agree with the honourable member who has preceded me in thinking that Sind does want to change its present inundation canals into perennial canals. I have my sympathy for anything that will remove the grievances of the people as regards the vagaries of the river and if we can get them any protection, be it against the vagaries of a big river like this or other natural agencies they have our sympathy without any provincial jealousy. I fully sympathized with the demand of the people of Sind last time when this subject was before the Council in 1921. We all supported it then because we wanted a unanimous demand to go to the Government of India for help. That help is not coming. On the last occasion the Honourable the Finance member and the Honourable Member in charge both of them said that unaided this gigantic scheme could not be taken up by this province. I want the Council to consider whether in view of this statement at theirs and the withdrawal of the help expected from the Government of India, we shall still go on with the full scheme.

       The Honourable Mr.H.S.LAWRENCE: May I ask the honourable member to point out where I said that we could not take up the scheme?

        Mr.G.B.TRIVEDI: You said so at the debate on Mr.Pahalajani’s resolution in 1921. I want the Council to reconsider the scheme, and as suggested by the honourable member from Poona, make it financially bearable by this Presidency. The Presidency has already a borrowing of 30 crores for Development Department and you are adding to 30 crores another 18 crores plus interes charges 7 crores, and as pointed out by the honourable member for Poona another 2 crores Government want to take out from the Agricultural Department. The latter means that they only want to show to the Council that it will not swell the interest charges, although it will. It is not that we do not want to sympathise with Sind. But the position is now different. When somebody provides funds for you, you may be very glad to build a palace for yourself, but when you have to spend from your own resources, then you have to reconsider the estimates. In 1913 the position was different. The Government of Bombay had put up a scheme which was then an Imperial scheme. But after the Reforms the question has taken an altogether different turn. We were under the impression that the Imperial revenues were going to finance it and that we were to get a support of 10 crores. Now that Imperial help is not forthcoming. Therefore, without doing any harm to the people, can we not ask Government to put up a modified scheme, a scheme that will necessitate our going by the experience gained in the course of the construction of a portion of the scheme? A man who has served the country for 20 years as District Engineer, as Superintending Engineer and as Chief Engineer in Sind says “ Get the experience of the Rohri canal; see how it works and then proceed with the works.” You do not listen to it; his opinion has been condemned. You may pass this resolution by the weight of numbers, but public opinion will be against you. The scheme is being rushed through in a short time. As regards the time given to us the Honourable Member in charge has said that the literature on the subject has been supplied. I will ask the honourable members here when they got this literature and whether they have all been able to go through it. It is stated that except the chamber of Commerce at Karachi, no public body in Bombay, no Indian public body, has been consulted in this matter, as to the financial side. I agree that we are not expects on the technical side of the question and I am not going to doubt the engineering part of it. My whole proposition is that we must be given time to examine the scheme.

              Mr.O.ROTHFELD: on a point of order, Sir. Is the honourable member for accepting the scheme or is he opposing it?

           The Honourable the PRESIDENT: I should like to know how much time the honourable member is likely to take. If he is going to take some time, I think it would be desirable to ask him to resume his speech to-morrow. In the meantime. I should like to ask honourable members as to what their wishes are in regard to a letter which I have received from 17 honourable members mostly from Sind--- I think all of them are from Sind. They write to me as follows: ---

        “We the members from Sind, respectfully state that this time of the year is one when we cannot afford to be out of Sind on account of the exigencies of active cultivation. We therefore request that the Council may assemble to-morrow early at 12 and sit late, if need be till 8 p.m. so as to enable us to return earlier.”

         I should like n the first instance to ascertain what the general wish the council is: whether they wish to comply with the request of the honourable member from Sind or whether they propose to meet at the usual hour, or whether they wish to have any variation at all. In this connection I should like to point out first of all that one honourable member has already given notice to-day of a motion for adjournment of the House on a matter of urgent public importance. That subject will, if I consent to it, come up to-morrow for discussion after question time. If the House takes it up to-morrow the present resolution will have automatically to be postponed at four o’clock and the Council will discuss the new motion up to six o’clock. There is one further point, which I should like to bring to the notice of this House and that is that the list of question which are to be answered to-morrow may arrive here a little later than one o’clock. So that if we meet earlier and the council is prorogued by His Excellency to-morrow evening, then no further questions can be answered at this sessions. I know many honourable members would like to conclude on Saturday evening in order to go back on Sunday. In view of all these considerations, I should like to ascertain the views of the House in fixing the time for meeting to-morrow.

         Mr.C.M.GANDHI: May I point out, Sir, that there is another meeting fixed at 11 o’clock to-morrow and it would not be possible for us to meet before 1 o’clock?

     Mr. IBRAHIM S.HAJI: My Honourable friends from Surat refer to quite another meeting, Mr. President. Is it relevant to the question we are considering?  

      The Honourable the PRESIDENT: Honourable members need not be too technical. What the honourable member for Surat city says is that there are several other engagements already fixed.

       Rao Bahadur G.K.CHUTALE (Ahmednagar District): What I would like to point out, Sir is that the matter is very important and even though it may be a matter of the greatest urgency to my Sind friends. I would say to them that they should not be so impatient. I would appeal to them to let full publicity be given to the whole scheme; let full opportunity for discussion be given to honourable members and others. I think the Council would do well to spend more time on such a vital question as voting for an expenditure of over twenty crores of rupees. To my mind it is a very serious matter. To that seriousness let us not add our impatience and impatience in favour of certain selfish interests somewhere else.

          The Honourable the PRESIDENT: We do not want a speech now.

Rao Bahadur G.K.CHITALE: I am nit inflicting a speech, Mr. President.

        The Honourable the PRESIDENT: Order, order. I know the honourable member from Ahmednagar’s view is that the thing should not be rushed and that the meeting should be held at the usual time to-morrow.

        Mr. B.G.PAHALAJANI (Western Sind): I would only like to say a word or two Sir. I will finish in a moment. I am not going to dispute at all the power or right of honourable members to meet at the usual time, Sir. I made an appeal to them through you and through the Honourable the Leader of the House in regard to what we Sind members desire in this matter. It is for them to hear that appeal and consider it. Another suggestion I have to make is, if it suits the European members of the Council to sit on Sunday, we might also consider whether we may not meet on Sunday if necessary.

     The Honourable the PRESIDENT: That is a question for to-morrow and it cannot be considered to-day. In view of the other engagements referred to and in view of the possibility of questions being placed before the meeting to-morrow, and further in view of this motion for adjournment, I am afraid that it will hardly be possible to conclude the business of this meeting to-morrow. But if honourable members agree, I can call the meeting at 1 o’clock instead of at 2 and then we shall see if we can possibly finish to-morrow, then we can consider whether we should sit, with the unanimous consent of the House, on Sunday. Especially as we have commenced our business half an hour later than usual to-day, we might meet to-morrow at 1 o’clock. I hope that satisfies all. [“Yes, yes.”] The Council is adjourned to 1 p.m. to-morrow, Saturday the 9^th June 1923.

Date: 09 June 1923

(Debate on the Resolution re Sukkur Barrage Project resumed.)

MR. G.B.TRIVEDI

    MR. G.B.TRIVEDI (Thana District): Sir, when we adjourned last evening, I ended with an assurance to my honourable friends from Sind that I and other honourable members in this Council who want to criticise the scheme are not at all actuated by any spirit of obstruction, or of coming in the way of development of Sind. This scheme is so gigantic that it requires a very calm atmosphere to consider it. It took Government twenty years to come to a final decision about it. After the scheme was sent to the Secretary of State in 1912, Government have been looking into it patiently; it has been revised and re-revised. Is it not then right that this House should protest against the policy of Government and their supporters to rush this scheme in a day or two in this House? We in this House can only discuss the general principles, and point out our objections and misgivings, and it would be only in the quite atmosphere of a committee that the matter can be gone into thoroughly. We have some responsibility in the matter. We do not want to dispute the decision of Government as to the engineering side of it, but we want to examine thoroughly and in a calm atmosphere the financial side of it. The ruling of the Chair has been that this is resolution and not a money bill, although in my opinion, it is a money bill, because if we sanction it, then we shall have to produce Rs.20 crores at once. That being the case, we cannot be expected to pronounce our opinion on this matter with in fifteen minutes, while Government have taken twenty years to come to a decision on it. Therefore, I submit that, after having a general discussion on it, it would be proper if its consideration goes into the hands of a committee of this House. I do not want to delay matters; I would rather wish that committee, if appointed, should give its decision as early as possible; we may consider it even at the next session, but I protest strongly against the way in which the Government and their supporters want to rush such a gigantic scheme in this House in a day or two. With these remarks I appeal to this House to consider a scheme of such gigantic proportion in a calm atmosphere and not in a holiday spirit as seemed to be evident yesterday. I have my own grave doubts about the financial side of it.  

        The Government of Bombay, when they saw that the Government of “India were not coming to their aid, produced, like a magician, a scheme by which they said we could get Rs.12 crores by the sale of land from the second year of the beginning of construction. I have my own doubts about it, and the honourable member from Poona has given to the Council figures about the population of Sind. My honourbale friend from Larkana told the Council in 1921 that the state of the zamindars in Sind is very miserable. Taking all these things into consideration, I wonder who will be the purchasers of the land at the enhanced price which Government hope to get, not after the completion of the project but from the second year of the beginning of construction, as if there is something charming coming on and people will simply rush to have it. The people of Sind will not rush to it. Although I do wish that the people of Sind should benefit by it, I do not think they will be in a position to purchase the land. Therefore, it will be impossible to prevent outsides from coming in and if they come in there will be another danger. To my mind the real danger is this: I feel that the whole scheme from the Government side is not so much in the interest of the people of Sind, as has been tried to be made out, but it seems to me it is in the interest of the cotton growers who are interested in seeing that more cotton is grown in India in the interest of Lancashire, and my suspicions are confirmed by what the Under Secretary of State is reported to have side in a speech  he made last week in England. He is reported to have said that 5 millions of acres of land will be available for cotton growing.

           Mr. F.NELSON (Bombay Chamber of Commerce): I rise to a point of order. Am I correct in assuming that what we are now debating is the amendment moved by the honourable member for Poona, and if this be the case what the honourable member for Thana is saying has no possible relevance to the amendment moved by the honourable member from Poona District (Dewan Bahadur Godbole)?

         The Honourable the PRESIDENT: The honourable member knows that I informed the House that in order to expedite the discussion of this important subject, I have ruled that the whole subject including the amendment should be discussed together. If we adopt the old procedure of discussing each amendment separately, the proceedings will be considerably prolonged. Therefore, both the original resolution and the amendment are before the House and they will be discussed together.

        Mr.DIPCHAND T.OJHA: So far, there is only one amendment before the House. I understand, however, that there are two or three more amendments to be placed before the Council. I would suggest that they may be read out now, so that any honourable member who wishes to address may speak on all.

        The Honourable the PRESIDNET: The honourable member will have to be patient till the other amendments are actually moved. Notice of several other amendments has been received and I quite recognise the force of what the honourable member has pointed out. I hope that those honourable members who wish to propose amendments will do so at the earliest opportunity.

          Mr. G.B.TRIVEDI: I am further confirmed in this doubt by the despatch of the Government of India, Public Works Department, No.23 P.E., which has been placed in our hands. It is dated 16^th December 1920, and the views of the Cotton Committee are quoted at full length in it in several places. Anybody who reads that despatch and the way in which the Cotton Committee’s opinion and that of the Irrigation Committee is quoted, will be convinced that over and above doing this beneficial work for the people of Sind, there is some ulterior motive behind it, and I want an assurance from Government that it will not give any land, directly or indirectly, to any syndicate outside this country. In the absence of such an assurance on the part of Government, my doubt will be confirmed that this scheme is not, as it is sought to be shown, in the interest solely of the people of Sind, but that there is an ulterior motive and that it is being undertaken for somebody who is outside this country. If that is so, I strongly object to any money of this country being spent for the development of land in the interest of people from outside. If any outside people are interested in it, let them come and say that they want to develop the land in their own interest, and that they will pay for the greater part of it, but I strongly object, in this way, to our developing a tract by means of our money and then give the benefit to people from outside because there will be no people form Sind to take up the land. If Sind were to benefit by it, I would be the first to support it, but my fear is that people from outside will buy that land, will form a syndicate, and will exploit it for the benefit of another country, and I object from that point of view. I would rather leave my land uncultivated and develop it at my own convenience rather than allow an outsider to benefit at my expense. Therefore, the whole question should be gone into by a committee of this House thoroughly and examined at leisure.

       Then, Sir, I was surprised that in the speech of the Honourable Member in charge of the resolution there was not a word as to how he proposes to utilize the manhood and material of this country in carrying out the scheme. We all know there is already a gigantic scheme being carried out in the city of Bombay for its development. This Council impressed upon the Government the necessity of utilizing the man power and material of this country in the execution of that scheme. Government assured that they would so far as possible purchase in India available materials and for the rest they would purchase in the cheapest market, and that they would utilize the man power of the country. Now I see that there is not a single Indian Superintending Engineer in the whole of the Development Department.

        The Honourable Sir CHIMANLAL SETALVAD: May I tell the House that the honourable member is quite mistaken? There is one Indian Superintending Engineer.

          Mr.G.B.TRIVEDI: Out of how many?

       The Honourable Sir CHIMANLAL SETALVAD: That is another question.

       Mr. F.CLAYTON: Are we discussing the question of Bombay Development?

         The Honourable the PRESIDENT: While discussing the question before the House, the honourable member incidentally referred to a cognate subject: I cannot rule him out of order.

       Mr. G.B.TRIVEDI: I want the Council to insist upon Government assuring us that they will place Indian Superintending Engineers who have experience of irrigation in charge of the scheme. I do not object to the employment to a limited extent of foreign element of superior kind. What I wish to insist upon is that up to at least 75 per cent of the Superintending Engineers should be Indians and the Government should give an assurance to us in this matter before we pass the scheme. As regards the material that will be required, it will be iron and steel wares. We have Indian firms like the Tata Iron and Steel Company, manufacturing iron and steel articles. They have already supplied to Government before. I insist upon the Government giving an assurance to this House that they will purchase all available materials in India and the remaining materials in the cheapest markets. It may be said that if they go in for Indian materials, the price will not cheap. I admit that it will be a little more. Even though Indian made articles are a little more costly, they must go in for them, because it is a recognized principle that the money of a country should not go out of it. The Indian prices would very favourably compare with English prices. I read the other day that owing to labour and other problems the price of iron in England would not go down. They will require tools for 2 ½ crores. Why should we not purchase in the cheapest market? There is America; there is Belgium and Germany where we can get them much cheaper than in England. Government have made no effort hitherto to purchase materials in the cheapest market. They simply say that the high Commissioner for India recommended the purchase of the materials in the English market. The Government use the High Commissioner for India as their agent. The High Commissioner for India decides the tender, while in the colonies it is not so. I want that these tenders should be finally decided by the Government if possible in consultation with an advisory committee of this House, in order that we may be assured that the purchase is made in the cheapest market. There are the essential conditions which will have to be satisfied before we pass the scheme. Firstly we must have an effective advisory board----unlike the one that we have for the Bombay Development scheme--- which will have the power to determine every item of sales of land and purchase of materials. That board must consist of the elected members of this House--- I do not want to give that board executive power--- and they should be satisfied with regard to every item of purchase and sales; and if they do not like any item they must report it to this House. The House will then understand the position and decide upon the steps they should take. With these words I move the following amendment:

         “That the following words be added at the end of the resolution:

          ‘ Provided that a committee elected by this House is associated with the Member in charge and that appointments of the staff, the purchase of stores, the sale of land, and other matters in execution of the scheme are done with the advice and in consultation of that committee’.”

         I move my amendment and hope the Council will see that this committee is necessary not only in the interest of the scheme but in the interest of the country itself. Our patriotism requires that we should insist upon this salutary and wholesome restraint on Government, after our experience of the Development Department.

        The Honourable the PRESIDENT: I think that the work of the Council will be expedited if I call upon those members who propose to move amendments to put them before the House at once, so that the whole subject the resolution as well as the amendments may be discussed together. I therefore call upon the Honourable the Deputy President to move his amendment.

      Rao Saheb HARILAL D.DESAI: Sir, I move the following amendment;

1)      In view of the fact that the Secretary of State for India in his telegram No.63-I dated the 10^th April 1923, has given his sanction to the Sukkur Barrage project on the understanding that construction estimates submitted by the Bombay Government are adequate and that land sales may be confidently expected to yield 12 crores 60 lakhs of rupees spreading over 25 years;

2)      That Mr.Musto in his pamphlet “ Future of Sind” says at page 45 that on the basis of 6 per cent for borrowed capital “the project was no longer productive “ and it became necessary for the Government to improve the financial prospects of this scheme and to increase its revenue; and

3)      That the figures of thus improved prospects as submitted to the Government of India by the late Mr.Mead, the then Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay, by his letter No.880-A dated 20^th February 1923, show an immense improvement over previous calculations of the Government of Bombay,this Council considers it incumbent on them to have the financial and revenue forecasts underlying the Sukkur Barrage project submitted to them thoroughly examined by a committee appointed by this House for the purpose of sifting the productive character of the project as a business proposition and as entailing no eventual provincial taxation. The Council further requests the Governor in Council to invite the opinions of all important public bodies in the Presidency on the final project as submitted to the Secretary of state and resolves that the project be considered at its first session next year in the light of the report of the committee referred to above and of the opinions of public bodies consulted.

In supporting this amendment with reference to the resolution of the Honourable the General Member, at the outset I wish to draw the attention of the House to the telegram from the Secretary of State for India in Council to the Government of India, which is among the papers supplied to honourable members. He says:

    “ I note that Government of Bombay adhere to view that construction estimates are adequate and that land sales may be confidently expected to yield 12 crores 60 Lakhs rupees spreading over 25 years allowing for certain concessionary grants to local zamindars. I understand that your Government accepts Bombay Government’s views on above matters.”

      Then he goes on further to say:

      “In view of renewed assurances regarding estimates and of explanations tendered by Gebbie I do not feel justified in withholding any longer financial sanction which I hereby accord. I presume that project will now be laid before local legislature.”

      Further on he expresses that the Government of India and the Local Government are responsible for the entire financing of the project, and says: “My sanction is given on this understanding.” And further it is stated regarding charges of interest during construction to capital:

     “I approve of proposals in paragraphs 7 and 8 of 29^th November regarding charges to interest during construction to capital as a special case and treatment of land sale proceeds.”

      Consequently honourable members will see that the Secretary of State for India in Council has not taken any responsibility for the adequacy of the construction estimates nor for the forecasts with reference to the recovery of 12 crores 60 lakhs of rupees from sale proceeds. On that understanding sanction is given and the whole responsibility is left to the honourable members of this House to approve or not to approve the scheme. Therefore, the responsibility of this House as representatives of the tax payers of this Presidency is very great and very serious.

[Rao Saheb Harilal D. Desai]

        The Honourable the General Member yesterday read to us an essay on the benefits of irrigation and the necessity of perennial irrigation in Sind. As regards that question, I do not think there are any two opinions in this House. Everybody is inclined and inclined favourably to help Sind as far as it is possible to do so without taking any grave financial risks. As regards the financial forecasts of the arrangements, the Honourable the General Member more or less slurred over the question by barely stating the facts and did not go into that question as fully as he should have done. And lastly he wound up by having a thrust at the honourable member for Thana for rushing into print with an advice to honourable members that the question required very careful consideration. Of course the question is very serious and very important. Since he has dealt with that matter in the way in which he did, I feel bound to say that this project, as the Project Engineer has so frankly admitted, had to be done by him as a rush job, and we in this Council are also practically asked to approve of it more or less in a rushing manner.  The atmosphere of this question seems to be such as if things are to be carried by assault. That, I submit, is not the way to deal with such an important question. And when Government took, as has been said twice over by the previous speakers, about twenty years to finally put up the project, can it be expected that the project could be sanctioned within two or three days of the Council session? When this is the atmosphere, it is for the honourable House to consider who are the rushing gentlemen who wish to rush the scheme and who are those who are careful not to deal with such a large question without looking into it. I leave it to the Council to judge who rushes and who does not rush. Then so far as the honourable members of this Council are concerned, they have to act with responsibility and if they think that on such a momentous questions it is necessary to look into the financial forecast as well as the adequacy of construction estimates, etc., there is nothing very queer in the desire for proceeding with the question in that way. I feel inclined to say that, as regards the financial forecast, there is an amount of optimism in the calculations and that optimism has increased as objections came to be advanced to the adequacy of the estimates or to the financial soundness of the scheme.

        The Honourable members of this Council will bear with me if I give a very short resume of the events as they have happened. In December 1920 the Government of India submitted this scheme to the Secretary of State and in forwarding the scheme they stated that there were no apprehensions with reference to the withdrawal of water at Sukkur barrage on account of the Sutlej project. They have definitely state it there to that effect. Secondly; they also stated in that forwarding letter that the scheme must be considered as a productive scheme. Now, thereafter, the Right Honourable the Secretary of State, Mr. Montagu, in June 1921 while addressing the Government of India on the subject said that the apprehensions with reference to the withdrawal of water by the Sutlej project were groundless and did not deserve consideration and that consequently the scheme must be approached as productive project. Thereafter in September 1921 the Government of Bombay addressed a letter to the Government of India--- about the 22^nd September 1921--- and there they stated that the provincial Government will not be able to finance it from their own resources unaided. Thereafter, the question was placed before this House on the 7^th of October 1921 and there also it was stated that, in order to make the scheme practicable as well as profitable, aid from the Central Government was necessary, and in the discussion honourable members must have noted that it was stated that the interest on capital to the extent of 7 ½ crores should be borne by the Central Government and that there should be a help of 2 ½ crores in the construction work. A help of about ten crores was asked for. Then, thereafter, in December 1921 the Government of India refused the assistance which was asked for an said that under the Reforms Scheme it was the provincial Government who should bear the whole cost. There the scheme received a check and consequently the matter had to be looked into again. You will find at page 45 if the pamphlet “The Future of Sind” it is said:

      “When the Secretary of State’s orders were received to increase the basis of calculation from 5 per cent to 6 per cent for borrowed capital the financial prospects of the scheme had to be entirely re-casted and with the original proposal for raising revenue the Project was no longer ‘productive’.”

         Further on, it is stated:

      “With the revenue originally estimated for the scheme is therefore not a productive project and cannot be sanctioned as such.”

    Further on, it is stated:   

      “There could be no question of abandoning the Project until further efforts had been made to improve the financial prospects.”

      And lastly, it is said:

       “It was not considered prudent to reduce the estimate of capital cost of the works, though there may be savings under some heads owing to the steady reduction in the cost of plant and machinery. It was therefore necessary to increase the revenue.”

  Consequently, as the necessity arose, the optimism about the financial aspect of the question also increased. And what we find is that the Joint Secretary to the Government of Bombay wrote a letter to the Government of India on the 19^th of October 1922. That was a letter from Mr. Harrison, who is luckily at preset on our Council ….

       An Honourable MEMBER: No, he is not. That is Mr.R.T.Harrison.

       Rao Saheb HARILAL D. DESAL: I beg your pardon. The Joint Secretary, Mr.R.T.Harrison, addressed a letter to the Government of India and there we find a complete change of front. While the Secretary of State had sanctioned the scheme as a productive scheme only, the Bombay Government tries to make it out as a protective scheme in order that they may be able to divert Rs.10, 00,000 from Famine Fund every year for twenty years together towards this project. That is one thing. Secondly, it is proposed that money should be recovered by the sale proceeds of land, and in the statement which is attached to that letter we find that he suggest that it was possible to recover from Rs.100 to Rs.200 per acre from sale of land. He calculated the sale proceeds to accrue from the seventy year up to the twenty-first year and from the seventy to the eleventh year, which is set down as the year for the completion of the whole project, he calculated that about 260,000 acres would be brought under cultivation, and the sale proceeds are expected to be about Rs.3,18,00,000. Thereafter, a letter went to the Government of India and to the Secretary of State under the signature of the late Mr. Mead, the Chief Secretary. It was on the 20^th of February 1923 and there we find that he anticipates that the land sales will begin from the second year and that in the eleventh year there will be 623,000 acres sold and the money realized will be Rs.5, 40, 00,000. So he practically is far more optimistic than even the Joint Secretary to Government in his letter of October 1922. I submit that these financial forecasts, on which the scheme is sought to be justified after we received the refusal from the Government of India to help the scheme, are too optimistic and that the estimate is not likely to be realized. If honourable members will stretch their memory to what Messrs. Baker and Lane have stated in volume 20, page 31 of their Revenue Report, they will find that they say there that about half the A class land would be sold from Rs.10 to 20 per acre. If I am not mistaken, I think that is what Messrs. Baker and lane say, and if I am wrong, honourable members on the Government benches are here to answer or explain the matter. It is further stated in that report at page31:

     “Small amounts for ‘malikano’ have been included in the estimates, it being assumed that about half of the A lands might be sold at prices from Rs.10 to Rs20. Government can certainly get that amount, so it is right to include it in accordance with precedent but it might pay better to forego it in most cases and give the Zamindars a fair start.”

      Now in order to strengthen the position that I have taken, namely that these financial forecasts are too optimistic, I would refer honourable members to the figures and estimates of cultivation. The estimate is to reach a certain amount of cultivation in a certain number of years. The area under cultivation at present is 20 lakhs, roughly, as stated at page 42 of the pamphlet, “Future of Sind”. The total cultivable area under the project is stated to be 6,529,705, acres and with an intensity of 81 per cent. to be reached after 30years the cultivation anticipated is 5,308,408 acres and it is also stated in the reports as well as in this pamphlet that out of this 6,529,705 acres 50 lakhs of acres are in the occupation of private individuals, and 15 lakhs of acres are Government culturable waste, and out of these 5,000,000 acres in private occupation 2, 000, 000 acres are at present under cultivation and 3,000,000 have to be cultivated in a certain number of years under irrigation. The proportion therefore between the areas under Government and private occupation to be brought under cultivation is 2 to 1. Now if the intensity to be reached after 30 years is stated to be 53 lakhs of acres and there are at present 20 lakhs under cultivation, the 33 lakhs has to be reached in the proportion which I have shown to you. The area to be brought under cultivation could be divided as 22 lakhs under private occupation and 11 lakhs under Government occupation. Now I want to put it to honourable members whether so long as land to the extent of 22 lakhs of acres in private occupation has not been brought under cultivation by perennial irrigation, it is possible to conceive or to expect that people will rush in from the second year from the seventh year to pay from Rs.100 to Rs.250 per acre as time goes on. Ordinarily human nature is such that one would first cultivate what is in his private occupation and thereafter he would go in for the other land and pay for it. Secondly, at any rate, the barrage works would be complete in the seventh year. Connections from the old canal heads to the new canal heads will take four years, and all these connections would be completed in eleven years, and this could be done within the Rabi season which will take time and it may not also give an assured supply. Consequently, the assured supply would only come after the eleventh year, and so the anticipations of the Government of Bombay expressed in their letter of 20^th February 1923 are more than could be justified. Then let us approach the question from the standpoint of population. Messrs. Baker and Lane say that there is no question that it would be necessary to consider the question of colonization. At page 31 of their report they say:

       “As stated above, the colonization problem is not to attract immigrants but to move men from one part of the area to another.”

       I ask honourable members whether people are likely to leave their homes, and whether good cultivators are likely to leave their homes and settle wherever there is land and also pay for it. They further say:

        “But good cultivators, even if they own no land, are usually prosperous and unwilling to leave their homes to live in a desert as labourers or tenants-at-will. Consequently the old Sind custom of giving nearly all land to zamindars and leaving them to get cultivators was never very successful, even when the zamindars had a free hand.

        “The only way to get these men where they are wanted is to treat them as settlers are treated in Australia, to give them land and lend them money to build houses and start farming.”

         Now under such circumstances can you expect the recovery of prices beginning from Rs.100 an acre in the earlier stages to Rs.250 per acre?

           Mr. O.ROTHFELED: YES, certainly.

     Rao Saheb HARILAL D. DESAI: it is very good to say “certainly”.

        The Honourable the General Member said that even about these sale proceeds Government have received an assurance, that inquiries have elicited that it would fetch so much and also further that the Commissioner also thinks the same. But that letter of the Commissioner is not among the papers and what we have got among the papers, in Vol. V at the front page, is the forwarding memorandum of the Commissioner, Mr.Cadell, who says that he considers that there is no reason to believe that the estimates from the revenue point of view are otherwise than correct. This is a negative way of putting it and it appears to me to show that they are otherwise than correct. If these are to taken as positive assurances, I have nothing to say, but I feel considerable doubt about it. As to assurances member of this House coming from Sind, whom I consulted definitely said to me that a price of Rs.100 per acre for the second year could never be expected. Then I will put to the honourable members the question from the standpoint of population. At present there is population of 32 lakhs in the whole of Sind, and the cultivation is stated in the pamphlet to be 40 lakhs. Now 40 per cent of the population is engaged on land so that is comes to 13 lakhs and therefore per head of labouring population you have three acres, and if you take a family of a man, a woman, a child and a servant they may fairly be expected to cultivated 12 acres, but you have to bring 33 lakhs of acres of more land into cultivation and for that purpose you will require(even if you take the ratio of the present population and the present cultivation) about ten lakhs of population engaged on a land or 2 ½ lakhs of families for that purpose, but the question of colonisation has been rather very inadequately treated by Messra. Baker and lane. So I submit, looking at it from the point of view of labouring population engaged on agriculture in Sind and the volume of cultivation to be reached as well as from the fact that in the earlier years no one would rush to pay any large price and to accumulate interest on it, that the financial forecast deserves further examination and till then this question cannot be rushed for the approval of this House.

    There is another point which I wish to draw special attention to. It is stated in these papers that there are 3 ½ lakhs of small plots of land in the area which is proposed to be given away at Rs.15 per acre to the zemindars. If the estimates of Mr. Harrison and Mr. Mead are correct and if we take it that an acre would bring Rs.100, it means the price is 3 ½ crores and if you calculate it at Rs.200 per acre, it comes to 7 crores and if you deduct Rs.15 which is to be recovered from the one and the other, there will be three crores in the one case and 6 ½ crores in the case of the other. Now, capitalising it at 6 per cent, what does it amount to? Land worth 18 lakhs a year is to be given in gift, it you take the price as Rs.100; if you take the price as Rs.200, and about 39 lakhs a year are given away as a gift. Why and for what purpose? So the scheme also in that way practically is not sound. I submit that this is a scheme which requires to be thoroughly looked into and examined from the financial aspect.

         I have now only to say two or three words with reference to the adequacy of the construction estimates. The estimates of the P.W.D.have so far never been adhered to either in the Bhatgar Dam in which case they have been exceeded by over 88 per cent. and in the case of the Back Bay Reclamation Scheme the estimates have been exceeded by about 91 per cent. If the estimates are not adhered to, if the work is not done to schedule time and if the working expenses which are estimated to be 1.2 per acre come to 1.5 per acre in the earlier period then it is questionable whether the scheme would be a productive one; and it is from the standpoint of its productive character that we have to consider the question before the House.

 (THE President)

       The Honourable the PREESIDENT: I should like to remind the House before proceeding further with the discussion that that I have allowed considerable latitude in the matter of time to the moves of the three amendments in view of the importance of the subject. All the facts for and against have been ably put by both sides before the House and in addressing the House I hope honourable members will remember that there is a time limit of fifteen minutes and that they will try their best to confine themselves to that limit.

Khan Bahadur SHAIKH GHULAM HUSSAIN

      The Honourable Khan Bahadur SHIAKH GHULAM HUSSAIN: Mr. President, coming as I do from Sind, I consider it my duty to make a few observations on this important scheme. Before I come to the main scheme I would like to reply to some of the objections that have been raised. I find both yesterday and to-day that most of the honourable members who have spoken trotted out the bogey of insufficient population in Sind. Conceding it is insufficient, we have neighbouring place from where we can draw labour, such as Marwar, Cutch,Baluchistan, Afghanistan, etc., and we have actually an example in the Jamrao Canal, for when that was constructed, the same bogey was trotted out and we find to-day not a single inch of land unoccupied on the Jamrao Canal.

       As to the population of Sind, at present it is 33 Lakhs, and I submit that the honourable member from Poona and the honourable member from Ahmedabad were not correct in their calculations that only 40 per cent.of these 33 lakhs are agriculturists. There are nearly 4/5^th of 33 lakhs, devoted to agriculture. Besides all the existing cultivated and waste land which is in the possession of private individuals, there will be 15 lakhs of acres of Government land. The waste and Government land will take at least 25 years to cultivate and I am sure that the population of Sind will increase during that period from 33 lakhs to 40 lakhs, it not more, according to the calculation of the honourable member from Poona.Now, these 33 lakhs of people out of 40 lakhs will be sufficient, in my opinion for cultivating the land that will be at the disposal of the people of Sind. There are already, as the Honourable Member in charge has informed this House, 2 lakhs of zemindars in Sind, and out of this Government land of 15 lakhs, 3 ½ of acres will be given as frontage to the zemindars because it will be near to their land, and they will not require more labour, as each zemindar will not be given more than 1 ½ acres. There remains the 11 ½ lakhs of acres, but I have already stated that there will be within 25 years 33 lakhs of people who will be devoted to agriculture and who will earn their livelihood by that means, and I think they will be sufficient for the purpose cultivating this land.

         It was further stated that the Sind zemindar wil not come forward to purchase this land. Now all the land which will be sold will be only 11 ½ lakhs of acres. The rest belongs to the zemindars. Now, besides the zemindars, there are a number of other people in Sind who wish to have land. Those officers who have been in Sind must know how many retired officials there are there who wish to go in for land. In addition to them, there are many rich Hindus and money-lenders who are trying to get land. I am sure that all of them will go in for new land. I am thankful to the honourable member from Poona who showed his solicitude for the Sindhis and said that they ought to be given this land and they must cultivate it. But I must say that in their infatuation for the Sindhis the honourable member from Poona as well as the honourable member from Ahmedabad tried to kill the scheme by the various amendments that they brought. There is one other important point which we should not lost sight of, and that is that by the construction of the barrage, the whole system of cultivation will be changed in Sind. At present we have inundation canals, and on the inundation canals even kharif cultivation in done by lift and flow, and rabi cultivation altogether by life. Lift cultivation requires more labour. What will be the result after the barrage is constructed? There will be all perennial canals, and by flow we will cultivate more land and we will require less labour for that purpose. Again much was made about the intensity of cultivation, falling short of 80 per cent. The honourable member from Poona, who was once an Executive Engineer in Sind, says that only 66 per cent. of the land available could be cultivated, and he based his calculations on the analogy of Egypt. But I submit that he need not have gone so far as Egypt for an analogy. He told us that in Egypt, where the conditions are nearly the same as in Sind, wheat is cultivated once in three years. But I would ask him to take the analogy of a country nearer Sind—I refer to the Punjab. The conditions in the Punjab are exactly the same as in Sind. There the land is irrigated by the same river Indus, and wheat is cultivated there every year. Therefore these calculations of 80 per cent. Cultivation are quite correct. There is another important fact which I wish to bring to the notice of the Council, and that is that, in the days of rabi, wheat is cultivated and that is requires much less water than kharif. If you have the same quantity of water, you can cultivate double of the rabi crop. Now, with the perennial canals we get the same quantity of water in kharif and rabi seasons, and the rabi cultivation will thus be nearly doubled. That also goes to strengthen the argument that we will have 80 per cent of cultivation.

         Another point that was made by the honourable member from Poona was that the barrage might obstruct the river navigation, but the honourable member from Poona should bear in mind that the river navigation is mostly between Sukkur and the Punjab, and Sukkur is considered as an unloading station for goods from the Punjab. He will find that there is very little river navigation between Sukkur and Hyderabad and Karachi.

       Dewan Bahadur k.R.GODBLOE: What will it be thirty years hence?

       The Honourable Khan Bahadur SHAIKH GHULAM HUSSIAN: It is so convenient to unload goods at  Sukkur and sent them on to Karachi which is the chief port for Sind, and export by rail would be much cheaper than by boats.

         Again, the honourable member from Poona made a point that the Nasrat, Dad and Jamrao canals were working at a loss, and as in their case the estimates were extravagant, so also perhaps the estimates for this scheme were extravagant. I think the very construction of the barrage is necessary to prevent the Nasrat, Dad and Jamrao canals which are inundation canals, from working at a loss. They are working at a loss, because the supply of water in the Indus has depreciated.

         Sometimes they get a proper supply of water, and sometimes they do not and by constructing the barrage we will give the Nasrat, the Dad and Jamrao canals an assured supply of water throughout the 12 months. The construction of the barrage will remove all complaints, and it will give us a perennial and adequate supply of water for the 12 months of the year.

        Then an amendment was proposed by the honourable member from Poona to the effect that we ought to have only the barrage and the Rohri canal to start with. I was surprised to hear that proposal from a gentleman of the experience of the honourable member from Poona, who was an Executive Engineer himself. Suppose we have only the barrage and the Rohri canal, which is a canal on the left bank, and no new canals on the right bank, what will be the result? The new Rohri canal, whose head will be at the barrage, will take away most of the water, and the existing inundation canals which are on the right bank of the Indus, whose heads are much lower, will be starved.

       Mr.C.M.GANDHI: Is there no regulator at Sukkur?

          The Honourable Khan Bahadur SHAIKH GHULAM HUSSAIN: The heads of the other canals are lower, and the latter will be adversely affected.

         Then again, suppose we have the barrage and the Rohri canal first, and after trying the experiment we have the canals on the right bank. That means we will be carrying out the scheme piecemeal, and that will cost us much more than if the whole scheme were carried out at once, and I am sure it will be less productive than the whole scheme taken together.

      The honourable member for Thana merely showed lip sympathy for Sind, and said that he was surprised to see that the Government was going to rush through the scheme. He himself admitted that is had been before the public for the last 20 years. [Mr. G.B.Trivedi:No.] This is a question that has been discussed not only here but in England also. The honourable member for Thana himself has read all the literature regarding the scheme. Having fully realised the position, he was one of the party that had voted for the resolution of the honourable member from Sukkur for carrying out the scheme and for applying for financial assistance from the Government of India. Now that the Government of India has refused to sanction the assignment the honourable member wants to back out and says: “I am not going to vote for it because the Government of India has not granted the assignment.” Honourable members must know that it is the duty of the provincial Government to supply the money for the scheme.

       Now, Sir, much is made of the fact that this scheme is being financed from the Famine Insurance Fund. The honourable member for Ahmedabad said that we wrote to the Secretary of State and the Government of India that is was a productive scheme, but we are now making this productive because we are taking 10 lakhs from the Famine Insurance Fund and by the sale of 15 lakhs of acres of land. Three and half lakhs Of acres are given as frontage to zemindars who have a prescriptive right vecause the land which is sold as frontage adjoins the other land of zemindars and will therefore be sold on wasy terms to them. I wish to tell the Council that the people in Sind are very anxious to go in for land. If they come to know that there will be water not only for kharif but also for rabi, they will come forward to purchase the land. In some parts of Sind, lands are sold at the rate of Rs.250 per acre. If you take an average of Rs.100 per acre, we will realize about eleven crores by the sale of 111/2 lakhs of acres of land.

         Another advantage will be this. Owing to precarious condition of the river Indus, Government are suffering a loss of revenue every year through remission to the extent of 8 lakhs. If you look up the Revenue Department reports, you will find that every year remission are given in Sind to the extent of 8 to 10 lakhs of rupees. This will be saved to Government by this scheme. This aspect has to be taken into consideration in determining the financial forecast of the scheme.

The honorable member for Thana expressed his fears regarding foreign exploitation of land in Sind. He must realize that if a foreign syndicate is formed, land will not be given to them by selection. The whole land is to be sold within 25 years, not in one place but in different places and on different canals. I do not think a syndicate would be so foolish as to purchase lands in different places, for the cost of management I the different places would run away with their profits. I would myself object to any foreign syndicate acquiring large tracts of land by selection.

     As regards utilizing manpower, so long as my honourable friend in charge of Irrigation…..

       The Honourable the PRESIDENT: The Honourable Minister has already exceeded his time-limit.   

       The Honourable Khan Bahadur SHAIKH GHULAM HUSSAIN: One minute more, Sir.

          I think I am not wrong when I say that there are at present four Indian Superintending Engineers out of six in the Presidency. As regards the purchase of materials, the honourable member will realize that it is always the best policy to purchase in the cheapest market.

          Khan Bahadur S.N. BHUTTO (Larkana District) : Sir, it is rather amusing to hear such encouraging and sympathetic speeches from our honourable friends the previous speakers, but apparently they do not appear genuine or they do not realize how vitally important the scheme is to the interests of the agriculturists in Sind.

         It is not for us laymen to criticise the scheme, which has repeatedly been examined by experts and every honourable member is in possession of some of the most important documents connected with it. There is no justification to say that it is being rushed through, as the scheme has been before the public for over 20 years which is rather too much even for a scheme of this kind.

       The time for discussion is gone, now the time is for action: Now or never.     

       I would like to say a few words as to how Sind feels about the scheme. Sir, there are no tow opinions on this question, every one of us knows, there is no go for Sind without this scheme which promises perennial irrigation in Sind and restricts Punjab from drawing more water from the Indus.

You have got all the Sind representatives present in Council to-day and every one of them, I am sure, will hear me out on this point, as it is a question of life and death to Sind. Of course there were some minor difficulties felt by some of the Karachi districts zamindars, Tando Mohammad Khan zamindars and Upper Sind people, but we have been assured that they will be looked into and we are quite satisfied with the assurance so given.

      As for the difficulties pointed out by my honourable friend form Poona, that there are not sufficient people to cultivate the soil, I must point out that a large number of agriculturist in Sind, having no sure supply of water, have taken to labour, clearance and cart plying. As figures will show, one-third of the land has passed from agriculturists to money lenders. The poor agriculturist raises money heavy interest to invest in cultivation with high hopes, but unfortunately it is very seldom that his hopes are realized. His crop fails and the results is his holdings on which he raised money pass on to his creditors. It is under these conditions that the agriculturists have taken to different occupation to save themselves from starvation. When there is assure supply of water, every one of them will take to land and will cultivate twice as much land as they are able to do now. All the same Sindhis will be glad if the Presidency people will find it a paying concern to share the profits derived by introducing the scheme. It is only against the Punjabis that there are strong feelings prevailing in Sind. I believe even co-operative societies and Districts Central Co-operative banks may like to invest large sums and thus help the scheme financially if all possible facilities are shown to them.

       The other point, that Sind land is inferior and cannot be cultivated year by year, is equally incorrect. I would like to submit that I am a Zamindar and my personal experience has shown me that even where we have got well water the return is always good. I have got lands which have been cultivated on well water continuously during the last 15 years with wheat crop. It is only where there is basi wheat that after three or four year’s continuous wheat crop we have to grow gram for one year which strengthens the land and makes it quite fresh. Therefore it is absolutely wrong to say that land will remain uncultivated in alter-native years.

       I cannot help observing here that the House could afford to raise 30 crores of rupees to provide houses for the working class people of Bombay, but the House finds it difficult to do its duty to provide the people of the province of Sind with enough bread and save the masses from starvation. I believe if our friends found that Government had power to control the monsoon and to regulate it at will, they will not hesitate to raise even a hundred crores to see it done.

[Khan Bahadur S.M. Bhutto]

     The fact is that we have waited as long as possible ; we cannot afford to wait a day more, when we know that the Punjab Sutlej project will soon be completed and then without the barrage, Sind does not know where it will be. Nobody can question the power of the House to examine the scheme and to satisfy themselves about its soundness, but the fact is that it has been examined more than is needed.

As for the remarks of my friend, the last speaker, that I had stated on last occasion that Sindhis were too poor rather in miserable condition, if that is so, Sindhis will not be able to invest anything in land to help barrage financially, I submit that the statement I made then referred to Mohammadan agriculturists as a class. Thank God there are capitalists and would like to invest their surplus funds in lands on barrage if they find it a good paying concern.

      Therefore I appeal to all my honourable friends to give us a joint and hearty support to see the scheme through and save us from all-powerful and selfish Punjab. The whole question can be summarized in two words “Sukkur Barrage or no Sind”. With these remarks, Sir, I support the original resolution moved by the Honourable Member in charge of Irrigation.

      Mr. O. ROTHFELD: Sir, I should like in the first instance to say a few words on the subject of finance which has been touched upon by the honourable member from Poona and the honourable member from Thana. The subject of finance as it affects the Presidency can be looked at from two separate points of view, the point view of provincial finance, namely, the finding of money from the revenues of Government for the initial expenditure and carrying out of the scheme, and what I would like to call local finance, namely, that money which has to be found in the province of Sind by the persons who are to purchase the land. I think to some extent, judging from the rather vague remarks which were made on the subject by the honourable member from Poona, there has been some confusion on the two subjects. The honourable member from Poona, for instance, appears to have been under the misapprehension that by going in for the whole scheme at the present moment and borrowing under the contract entered into with the Government of India were tying ourselves down to borrow during the whole period of construction at the rate of interest which is now fixed by Government of India. If that is his apprehension, and I think it was, he will be relieved to hear that it is entirely erroneous. The contract with the Government of India is that the rate of interest Current at the time when any particular portion of the loan may be raised is to be levied from this Government for that portion so that if the credit of the country improves, as it will with the subsidence of unrest, and the loan market becomes easy, the Government of Bombay under its borrowing contract with the Government of India will receive the benefit of the more advantages rate of interest. I think there is nothing more to say on this point of provincial finance. There can be no question that we can raise the money. But I know from previous experience in this House that there are members who still have, in my opinion, an entirely undue timidity on the subject of borrowing. At the previous meeting of the Council when the last budget was discussed. I gave figures of the annual produce of the soil. My estimates were rough and were based on the assessment. I stated that the minimum normal produce of the Presidency could not be less than between 80 and 90 crores. I have now had an opportunity of reviewing the figures more carefully collected by the Agricultural Department for a period of 12 years, and I find, and I am glad to see, that although my estimate was perfectly correct—that the minimum cannot be less than 90 crores--yet it was an underestimate: the actual normal agricultural production of this Presidency is 120 crores a year. I think that the mere fact of this being already the normal agricultural production of this Presidency should remove the very serious misapprehension from that point of view of fearing to take a further loan to extent of 18 crores directly for the purpose of further increasing the agricultural productivity of the Presidency. The sum is one which is very moderate indeed compared to the total revenue or income of the Presidency.

      But there is a third point to be considered, namely, whether this is a loan which is easy to repay. And this brings me to the question of local finance. There seems to be a declared apprehension—I do not know how far it is sincere: I confess I find it very difficult to believe that it is sincere—on the part of certain honourable members from Gujarat, who wish to doubt whether the estimates of revenue which accompany the Sukkur Barrage scheme are anywhere near the amounts that will be obtained on realization. Personally, I am convinced from my experience of Sind—which, however limited it may be, is at least considerably greater than that of the honorable member from Ahmedabad—that all the sums estimated to be realized are still very considerably below what ought to be realized. But, of course, one has to understand in any question of this kind that at the root of the whole thing is the point of what pressure you are going to use to obtain prices for the land. Given a free hand, I have not the least hesitation in saying that the prices in Sind could be enormously increased over the estimates. But I admit that one has to add the words “given a free hand”. This means that one would have to neglect largely or entirely tribal claims and the possible dispute amongst zemindars about prescriptive rights and so forth, about which we have heard so much. I am one of those who do not owe any very great allegiance to the ideals of the past in that respect. I would go further than is proposed in the way of obtaining higher prices. But I do maintain this that, even accepting the system of auction on which the land is to be purveyed to the moderate extent in which it has been provided for in the scheme, even then, the estimates err, if at all, on the side of being under the sum that should be obtainable for the fine land that will be available in the country. It appears to me as if the honourable members who made these skeptical remarks had never scrutinised the prices of land even in their own districts. Are they aware of the fact that the prices of land all over the Presidency are really inflated, and that persons within reasonable radius of Ahmedabad are prepared to pay Rs.500 Rs.600 and Rs.700 an acre, be the land good, bad or indifferent, although the prices of land in Gujarat are considerably lower relatively to the assessment than in the Deccan? in Baramati, for instance, where there is no sure irrigation to the extent that is expected in Sind after the project is completed, and where the soil is infinitely inferior to the soil of Sind, it is notorious that Rs.1200 an acre is quite an average price obtainable for  fair land. With facts like that, facts which are at the command of every honourable member of this House if he will take the trouble to study them, can anyone for minute suppose, that land in Sind is going to fetch less?

     Rao Saheb HARILAL. DESAI: Will you quote from the reports?

     Mr. O. ROTHFELD: Which reports? I am perfectly prepared to rely on the report if he will specify it. But I would ask him to rely on the report of his eyes. Is he prepared to say, from the report of his own eyes, that in Ahmedabad city there is not a demand for land at the prices I have named and that there are not many applications for land there? I will certainly guarantee that the people of Sind formed in co-operative association and societies for the purpose will apply in very great proportion for the land which will be available from the Sukkur barrage scheme, and I sincerely trust that Government will view such application from co-operative farming and co-operative credit societies with favour. Moreover, if there should be any question of the funds required by cultivators who intend to purchase and have to raise money for the purpose, I have again no hesitation at all in predicting that in Sind within six or seven years the co-operative movement with outside backing will be amply able to supply the sums needed on reasonable terms and that it will be possible to find money for the finance required by cultivators.

I wish aslo to invite attention to one or two other facts about cultivation in Sind which evidently have been misunderstood by the honourabke member form Ahmedabad when he doubts the possibility of the scheme. He stated in the course of his speech that there would not be sufficient persons to cultivate the land, and that one family could not reasonably be expected to cultivate more than twelve acres of land. I presume that be inferred and intended the house to infer that at the present moment the cultivators in Sind as a whole were cultivating at least twelve acres of land per family. May I give this House the actual figures? There are at the present moment 208,000 cultivators in Sind. Out of these 208,000,67,000 own holdings under Government of less than 5 acres, and 64000 own holdings under Government of between five and 15 acres; nearly 132,000 cultivators in Sind—Government occupants of land—own lands under 15 acres and roughly 90,000 of these may be assumed to own holdings of less than 10 acres. I think we may readily believe that a considerable portion of these cultivators will be forthcoming to take up land. I am more than glad to have been given this opportunity by the honourable member from Ahmedabad of pointing out facts which are perhaps apt to be forgotten both in this House and outside and of reminding members that Sind is not entirely a land of large zemindars. There are in Sind larger estate owners of over 500 acres to the number of 2,251. H 271—14.

[Mr. O. Rothfeld]

     But against that, we have over 200,000 other cultivators owing small holdings and I maintain that a great deal of the best cultivation in the province is being done by these cultivators with small holdings.

This brings me to another point. It was one stage suggested that the scheme could be taken up in two stages that in the first stage a suitable lock should be carried out in stages based on experience gained in the initial stages. A great deal has been said already by the Honourable Minister in reply, but I desire to add only a few remarks on the subject. The best and most numerous class of small cultivators in the whole of Sind is probably to be found at the present moment in the district of Larkana. It has the best cultivable land and the cultivators there are most deserving of encouragement and help by their industry, their diligence, and their activity with the exception perhaps of the Punjabi colonists on the Jamrao. It would, I think, be a lamentable thing to postpone the Right Bank canal scheme which is going infinitely to increase the prosperity of that very deserving in the class of small cultivators, perhaps the most deserving in the whole province of Sind.i would like with your permission to go back to the history of this scheme……

         The Hounurable the PRESIDENT: The Honourable member has nearly exhausted his fifteen minutes.

          Mr. O. ROTHFELD: Then I will conclude, sir, in a few minutes. In regard to the scheme which the honourable member from Poona suggests of providing a lock at the barrage, of course, the idea of having a lock is at first sight a reasonable possibility and it was a possibility which has not been over locked. It is indeed far from being an original idea of his own. The possibility was scrutinized in 1909 by the officers who were investigating the scheme. It was negative because it was found to be unnecessary and costly. Where the honourable member however is original is in his remarks when the suggests that such a lock is required to allow boats of about 600 tons to ply upwards and downwards on the Indus. But I may once tell the honourable member that he will not fond a 600 ton boat within the close vicinity of Sukkur. He will have to go down about 400 miles away to the center of a place commonly known as the Indian Ocean then and then only will he discover 600 ton ships in full sail or under steam. I do not know whether the honourable member is aware that the carvel which carried Christopher Columbus and his fortunes when he discovered America was a boat of 52 tons. But I expect that the honourable member really meant to speak not of 600 tons but of 600 mounds. Even at that rate that the figure is considerably exaggerated. Moreover as the Honourable Minister has rightly pointed out and as I know from experience, no boats from the Punjab—with very very few exceptions—ever go down below Sukkur. The Honourable member interjected during the Honourable Minister’s reply the remark “What about thirty years hence?” I fear that that interjection shows a certain misconception of topography and commercial geography. There are limitations of site and place which result in certain towns being natural centers of trade and these conditions endure century whatever the other factors may be. For instance when on leave I was interested to find at Windsor excavations which showed that the same road, the same ferry, and beside the ferry the same village and the trade centre had been in constant and exclusive use from early British times all through the Roman occupation and from the occupation down through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and up to the present day. Similar is the case of Sukkur. Sukkur is a centre of distribution for the whole of Baluchistan and upper Sind because of the topography of the place and its situation at the firm anchorage given by the gorge.  The barrage will in no way alter those conditions. Merchandise will continue to come to Sukkur and be transshipped there in order to be distributed throughout upper Sind. I will not say any more on the many other factors which influence the scheme. I will end only with one word that I beg the council to regard the project as a whole, and to see in it an essentially sound project which will lead to the prosperity in immense degree not only of Sind but of the whole Presidency.

      Mr. JEHANGIR B. PETT (Bombay Mill Owners’ Association) : Mr. President, being merely a practical business-man, I confess that I rise with considerable hesitation and diffidence to offer a few remarks on a matter, at once so complicated and so highly technical. But, sir, I have very carefully and attentively followed the able speech of the Honourable the General member on this question; have listened with equal care and attention to the speeches of the several honourable members who have followed him, some of whom have spoken with the weight of personal knowledge and experience; and if I may be permitted to add, have also not altogether unsuccessfully endeavored to wade through a goodly portion of the voluminous literature with which the Honourable the General Member, in the exuberance of his generosity, has very kindly flooded us; with the result that I have come to the conclusion that the scheme is an eminently practical one, and such as ought to be accepted by this Council in its entirely and without unnecessary delay. I say so advisedly, Sir, after carefully going through relevant portions of the mass of very useful and interesting information supplied to us, and particularly the two important pamphlets entitled “The Sukkur Barrage and the New Sind canals” and “The Future of Sind”, which contain very informing and exhaustive summaries of the many beneficial results which will ultimately accrue from the scheme.

      The project before us may, for the sake of convenience, be divided into and examined from three main standpoints: (a) the engineering aspect; (b) the financial aspect and (c) the ultimate beneficial aspect of it. I have no hesitation in accepting, as final and conclusive, the almost unanimous results of the investigations of the several experts who have given their verdict in such emphatic terms on the engineering aspect of the scheme before us. Like most members of this Honourable house, I am incompetent to pronounce an opinion on the technical aspect of the question; and readily accept the word and judgment of the many highly specialized men called to their aid successively by the Government of Bombay, the Government of India, and the secretary of state, all of whom, I find from the records before us, with one or two solitary exceptions, have unanimously come to the conclusion that the scheme is one which is eminently practical and can be put into effect with far-reaching results not only to the district concerned but to the entire province. As to the financial aspect of the scheme, the three most important points to be considered for it, are the manner in which money is found for it, the extent to which it will mean the hypothecation of the credit and resources of the province and the period within which the same can be redeemed from its profits. The figures supplied to us, which have been carefully examined by experts from different standpoints, show that the total outlay on the project will be something between 20 and 22 crores, which it is proposed to make up as follows: 12.6 crores by the sale of developed land, 2.8 crores by contributions from the famine Insurance Fund and the balance by loan. It the figures of the returns from anticipated sales can be taken as correct,--and I don’t see any reason why they should not,--I confess that the manner in which it is proposed to finance the scheme does not appear to me to be at all impracticable or open to any serious objection. We are told that it will be possible to complete the scheme in the course of 12 years, that sales of land will commence to take place from the 6th year and that the scheme will begin to realize interest on the loan after the ninth year. We have been emphatically and repeatedly assured by the Government on the advice of their experts that these calculations and estimates are substantially correct; and I see no reason to doubt their word. If so, I am of opinion that the scheme is financially sound one; and there is no reason to apprehend that it will constitute a serious burden upon the revenues of the province or unduly pledge its credit and resources, to the neglect and detriment of other needs. As to the ultimate productive capacity and beneficial effects of the scheme, we have got very valuable opinion placed before us in the excellent pamphlet by Mr. Musto entitled “The Future of Sind” and in the very fine summary of the whole scheme expounded in an interesting booklet entitled “The Sukkur Barrage and the new Sind canals,” which deals in very great detail with the ultimate benefits that would be derived from the scheme not only by upper and Middle Sind but also indirectly by lower Sind.

          The sum total of the conclusions arrived at by the writer of the booklet to which I have already alluded has been very clearly and convincingly embodied in a paragraph on the second page thereof, and I cannot resist the temptation of reading it out to the council even at the risk of being tedious. In explaining the benefits of the project, he says at page 3;--

      “Thus by means of this Barrage, or reviver regulator, it will be possible to give all the now canals full supply level at their heads, every day throughout the year. The result will be that, every branch, every distributary and every water-course on the fields will get water at full level all the year round. Hence at the beginning of a crop season , the cultivator can decide what is the best date for him to start sowing, and he will know for certain that he can get water in his water—course, to flow on to his fields on that day, no matter it is in March, April or May. The water will be ready for him. He will also be sure that after his crop is sown he will be able to give it its full proper watering at each time it is required. He will not have to wonder whether the canal will be running full enough to give flow to his karia. The water will be there every time in full quantity, and at full level to flow to his crop. He will not need to over-water his crop, and risk making the soil waterlogged and kalarish. He get just the right quantity of water for his crop every time it is needed, that is after every eight or ten days as the case may be, and this can be continued as long as necessary till the crop is fully matured. In the case of cotton, for example, he will be able to get water from the beginning of March if he wished to sow early American cotton, and could continue to water it till the end of October for late pickings.

      For other kharif crops he could also get water in March if he wished to sow early, and could continue to take water till the end of September. For his rabi crops he can take water for sowing from the beginning of October and continue to take water until the end of March or April.

On the rice canals, water will be ready in April for seed-beds, for transplantation in May, and full watering can continue till the end of September.

       Many Sind zemindars have seen or know the Jamrao canal, and know that this canal gets a more reliable supply in the kharif season than the ordinary inundation canals, and that it also gets some rabi supply. They know that in favorable year, the rabi supply on the Jamrao is fairly good and regular, but they also know that in unfavorable years the rabi supply on that canal is most unreliable and sometimes ceases altogether. The Jamrao canal depend for its supply on its natural level of the Indus at Rohri and with a low river gets a bad supply. The new canals will have none of this uncertainty. They will get a better supply every day of every year than the Jamrao now gets in the most favourable years, and they will never run short like the Jamrao now does, because the new canals will be independent of the natural level or the Indus, and will always be able to get the full level they require at their heads, by means of the Barrage.

       Thus the present uncertainty of the water supply will cease, and as the cultivator will be able to depend always on getting his water regularly and at all times, he will be able to depend always on getting his water regularly and at all times, he will be able to arrange his cultivation, and his labor and cattle in the most economical way; and to grow the crops best suited to his land and for his market. Most of the present occupied land in Sind is of excellent quality and will produce fine crops if given a regular water supply, and if properly sown and tended.

       But large area of these lands do not get a sufficient supply of water for maturing their crops at present. They will all be able to do so in future. At present a zemindar (except in rice lands) is lucky if he can get enough water to irrigate one-third of his holding each year (about three acres out of ten). When the new canals are made he will get sufficient water to cultivate 8 acres out of every 10 each year. He will be able to cultivate nearly as much kharif crop as at present, above two and three-quarter acres out of every ten, and in addition, he will be able to cultivate an additional five and half acres out of the same ten acres in the rabi season, if he wishes to do so. This will not be bosi rabi or lift rabi, but flow rabi with a full supply always available from the beginning of Ocotber to the end of March, or even April, if required. Even at floods, or an exceptionally late or high river, the Sindi zemindar never loses an opportunity of growing a rabi crop. When he can grow it with the certainty of being able to water it regularity by flow, there is no doubt he will grow every acre he can find the labour and cattle to cultivate.

      In addition to all the land at present occupied there are many thousands of acres of other good land not occupied, because they cannot get water. All these lands, within the limits of the new canals, will be given a guaranteed supply of water all the year round (except on the rice canals which will get water for six months only) and will be able to produce splendid crops.

Similarly, the enormous benefits that would from the development and cultivation of huge areas which were formerly neglected as waste land, are very graphically described at page 33 of the pamphlet entitled “The Future of Sind”. It is stated there:--

     “Thus it will be seen that the Sukkur Barrage and canals project provides sufficient water for the eventual cultivation of the following areas, in British and Khairpur territories:--

823,000 acres of rice.

1739,000 acres of cotton, jowari, etc.

3,338,000 acres of rabi crops (wheat, oil-seeds, etc).

Total 5,900,000 acres of cultivation, annually, in a total commanded area of 8,132,000 acres, in British and Khairpur territories. This is an increase of 3,522,000 acres over the present average cultivation of 2,236,000 acres annually.

     The total cost of the project will be Rs. 1,836 lakhs, or say £12,240,000. For comparison, it may be stated that the total area of Egypt is 8,460,000 acres, while the total cultivation is 5,400,000 acres. Thus the Sukkur Barrage Project will provide for 500,000 acres cultivation, annually, than there is at present in the whole of Egypt.”

       There are other important details of a similar kind which are contained in the literature before us and which can be quoted, all of which make it abundantly clear to us that if the scheme were carried to a successful termination, it would result in very considerable benefit not only to Sind but also to the entire province, we have heard many objections advanced against the estimates placed before us, but I have not yet come across a single solid argument in justification of such opposition. The honourable movers of the three amendments before us, although they have disputed the accuracy of many of the estimates contained in the reports in our possession, have not given us their authority for coming to the conclusions to which they have, in spite of the reports of Government experts to the contrary. The first amendment has been moved by my honourable friend, the member for the Poona district, which, whilst agreeing that the scheme should be undertaken, requests the Government to take it up in such instalments as they may think proper. Personally I fail to realize the importance of taking up a scheme of this comprehensive and important character by instalments. If we are convinced of the efficacy and utility of the scheme, it must be taken up at once and in its entirety. If on the other hand, we feel that it is no good, we ought to knock it on the head without delay. There cannot be an intermediate course. But I confess I have not seen a single argument advanced by the honourable member for the Poona district which would force us to come to the conclusion that the scheme was ill-considered and premature. There is another objection to this proposal of taking up the scheme by instalments, and that is that by such a process, the income therefrom would not come in as rapidly as it would if it were taken up comprehensively as a whole.  To my mid this is a very important point, because it would entirely upset all calculations relating to the returns, and would ultimately very prejudicially effect the productive character of the entire scheme. I think it is absurd to ask the Government to take up the scheme in instalments and at the same time to expect that Government should see that the fiures of the returns given by them should work out correctly. The second important point made by my honourable friend was about the deficulty of securing a supply of labour commensurate with the extent of the areas to be developed, having regard to the raio of the men now employed per acre on the soil already under cultivation. But to that a very good and convincing answer has been given by the Honourable the Registrar of Co-operative societies; and if there was any doubt on the matter, it must by now have been set at rest. It must also be remembered that many of the present zemindars have exceedingly small holdings and that large numbers of them will readily go in for more plots of land as soon as they are developed and are ready for sale, thus spreading out their present supply of men, and distributing their labours over a larger area than hitherto. There is also no reason why idle and unoccupie labourd from some of the neighboring districts and even provinces should not be attracted to these newly developed tracts of land. The third point that the honounrable member made, was that the fruition of the scheme will deprive the people of Sind of the rights of navigation now enjoyed by them below a certain point which he mentioned; but I understand from the honourable members who come from Sind and who know the place very well, that even at present, the navigation below that point amounts only to about two percent. If the total navigation in that tract, and that therefore, even if it means a certain amounts of hardship to some people, it is so negligible that it ought not weigh with us in coming to a decision on this important matter which will benefit millions of people.

       The second amendment placed before us is the one moved by any honourable friend, the member for the Thana district. Although he says that the council ought to accept the scheme, he makes the condition that it should be carried on under the supervision of a committee of the Council, which ought to be consulted on all questions connected with the sale of land, purchase of materials, purchase of machinery and other matters connected with the scheme. I do not understand, what he means by the comprehensive term “other matters connected with the scheme.” I submit that it will be very difficult to consult a committee of this House even in an advisory capacity, in a matter of this character, particularly as 9/10ths of us will be competent to deal with the technical details connected with such a scheme. The question of the purchases of materials and machinery stands on a different footing; and I do hope that the Honourable the General member will give us an assurance that such stores and machinery as are manufactured in the country and can be had at rates and of qualities which are not prejudicial to the interests of the scheme, will be purchased in the country.

         The third amendment was moved by my honourable friend, the Deputy President. It only asks that the scheme should be postponed for the present and sent out for the opinion of various public bodies; and that meanwhile, it should be referred to a small committee of the Council for the consideration and examination of the financial details involved there-in. I fail to see the efficacy or wisdom of such a course. The scheme has already been before the public for the last twenty years. I know that public bodies have not hitherto been called upon to give their opinions; but no public bodies, as far as I am aware, were ever prevented from doing so. The matter is really so complicated and so highly technical, that I am afraid that no public bodies will be able to pronouns an opinion there-on which can be called authoritative in any sense and which can be taken as the index of a correct appreciation on the part of the public of the intrinsic merits of the scheme. As to the financial aspect of the scheme, all the figures have been carefully prepared, examined and considered by the experts of the Government and by other experienced officers. Granting that they are correct, we ourselves are as competent to pronounce an opinion on their practical effect as anybody else; and unless any public body is in a position either to confirm or dispute with authority the accuracy of these figure, I for one fail to see the advantage of referring them to it for examination and report, as proposed by my honourable friend, the Deputy President. These figures have been prepared by officers who have practical experience of the matter and an inner knowledge of the extremely technical and complicated details involved in the scheme. I am sorry to say that I utterly fail to see either the reasonableness or the advantage of an amendment which asks us to postpone for another period of six months a scheme of this important character which should be taken up at once.

       Another important point which we have got to bear in mind is that about this time last year the Council unanimously accepted a resolution moved by the honourable member for Sukkur, practically placing on record its unequivocal approval of the scheme in the abstract. I know that it was accompanied by a proviso that the Government of India should share a part of the expenditure. The Government of India have unfortunately refused to do so; but that fact alone does not and cannot alter the character if the resolution which we have passed. It does not affect the approval which we gave to the scheme in the abstract, even though we may hesitate to take up the entire burden ourselves. But I have not yet seen a single member of this Council urge the refusal of the Government of India to share a part of this burden with us as a ground for rejecting this scheme. To expect the Council therefore to postpone the consideration of this proposal at this stage for another six months without any valid reason is to my mind not quite business like.

        Before concluding, I cannot however help saying that I entirely agree with my honourable friend, the member for the Thana district, in that care must be taken that the enormous areas which are to be developed by this scheme should not be allowed to pass under the control of foreign syndicates to the determent of the country’s interests. There was a laughter on the opposite benches when my honourable friend referred to this point, but I am bound to point out that there is very great force in the arguments which have been advanced by him and that the danger is a very real one. A very significant through passing reference was made to this point only the other day by the under-secretary of state for India in the course of a speech which he delivered in Lancashire before a body representing large cotton interests; and I do therefore hope that, in his reply, the honourable the General Member will give an emphatic assurance to this Council, that no portion of the land that will be developed will be made over to any foreign agency or syndicate, whatever its origin and purpose, without previously taking the advice and opinion of this Council.  I hope that the Honourable the General Member, holding the views that he does, will not fail to give us the assurance asked for. With this reservation, I have very great pleasure in supporting the proposition of the Honourable the General Member for the Acceptance of this scheme.

       Khan sahib A.M. MANSURI (Ahmedabad and Surat cities) : Sir, before we can explain the objects and scope of the Sukkur Barrage Project, we must understand something of the country and the people to be affected, and the defects of the present system of irrigation. We are told that Sind has an area of about 350 miles length and from 250 to about 120 miles in width. Sind has a population of about 33 lakhs, out of which about 40 percent live by labour upon land, 10 percent. By revenue form land, the major portion by care of cattle, sheep and camels, 2 percent by arts and industries, and 4 percent. By mendicancy. Sir, let us examine the condition of the agriculture of Sind. Agriculture demands three essentials—soil, water and labour, but the coincidence of these three factors is very scarce in Sind. Hence in Sind agriculture is nothing but a gamble as matters stand at present the Sind canals are inundation canals, and in Sind the total rainfall during the years is about 5½ inches. Out of 40 lakhs of acres of land about 4 lakhs have to depend upon rain, and the major portion of the remaining 36 lakhs of acres has to depend upon this uncertainty of the gamble of irrigation. Owing to this gamble, the Sindi cultivator sows his seed, the supply of water remains good for a fortnight or three weeks and the crop appears flourishing. Suddenly, the canal drops and the supply ceases and the crop withers away and dies. The cultivator again ploughs his land and again sows on the next rice, and the same thing occurs. He does it a third time, and this time perhaps he reaps a poor harvest. So, it sometimes happens that an idle and negligent zemindar reaps as good a harvest as a zemindar who does his work regularly. Sir, this position of cultivation in Sind makes inevitably for the zemindar to become careless and lazy, and to adopt a fatalistic attitude, and leave results in the lap of the gods, taking all they send him with both hands, and submitting with resignation or indifference when the fates are unpropitious.

         The only solution for this position is the construction of a barrage three miles below Sukkur at side proposed. Thus, with the canals fed from above the barrage, we can absolutely guaranty to all canals the full level and discharge they require all the year round. This supply being constant. It can be distributed with the greatest accuracy to all branches and distributaries, and from the latter to the village water courses and thence to the fields. Thus the cultivator will know for a certainty that he will get is water supply flowing on to his land with perfect regularity and in full quantity on the days appointed. So, he can make arrangements beforehand and his labour will not be lost. He will be certain of what he does, and he will be certain of his crops, and his labour and cattle can be allotted their regular tasks and kept fully employed all the year round. He will know that, as far as water requirements are concerned, he can sow his crop and be certain of watering it until it is ready for reaping and there will be no fear of water logging his valuable land compare this with the present system of irrigation where there is entire uncertainty and which makes the cultivator more fatalistic. Sir, by the Sukkur Barrage Sind will be one of the most fertile countries in India and in the world some arguments have been advanced that in Sind the people are poor, and we will not find sufficient purchasers for the land. It has been pointed out however, that they are poor because of the present position and condition of the land, that outsiders except zemindars do not go in for cultivation. By this assured supply of water, many people will take to cultivation, and they will find sufficient land for their occupation.

     Sir, it has been argued that this scheme may be postponed for a year. What I have seen from the pamphlet of Mr. Musto “The future of Sind” is that Government have been considering this question of irrigation of Sind since they took position of it in 1847, and it has been thrashed out by so many conferences and committees time after time, and I think that as the scheme stands at present, it has been sufficiently looked into, and I do not see that there is any room left for any further consideration. Now, the time for action has comes, and according to the proverb “Now or never” we must begin the work. The general impression is that whenever we want to shelve or indefinitely postpone a scheme then we must send it to a committee. After all, what will the committee decide? We are given all the fiscal points; there are several points of engineering interest which as laymen we cannot appreciate. But as regards the point urged by my honourable friend from Thana that there is a great likelihood that people from outside will be able to take advantage of the scheme at our cost, it is necessary that some assurance should come out from Government that that is not going to happen. Further, an assurance is necessary from the Honourable the General Member that, as far as practicable, all materials which are available in India will be purchased from the Indian market. I would not like to compare this scheme with the Bombay development scheme which involves an expenditure of Rs. 33 crores, and as one of my friends, at one time a high official in Simla, remarked in Bombay a couple of days ago, it is nothing but a scandal and a waste of public money. These are my objections to the development scheme.

The Honourable the PRESIDENT: The honourable member cannot introduce that subject in this debate; he cannot criticize the development scheme in the discussion of a resolution of this kind. He can merely incidentally refer to it in illustrating his argument.

     Khan Sahab A. M. MANSURI: About the present scheme itself. When I had occasion to read Dr. Summers’ volume about it I was quit pessimistic about it, but when I read all the literature that was supplied recently to hounourable members, my views were changed. But my conviction was further strengthened by a conversation I had with an Indian engineer who happened to be journeying with me. When I asked of him that he should tell me about this barrage, he assured me that it was a very good scheme, well matured and considered, and that it was really for the interest of Sind. My conviction was further strengthened by the opinion of another friend of mine who holds a high position in Sind, working as the wazir of one of the native states. He also assured me about the advantages of the scheme, and I feel perfectly satisfied that this scheme should not be postponed any longer but that it should be taken up at once. With these remarks, I support the resolution.

       Mr. F. CLAYTON (Karachi Chamber of Commerce): Mr. President, the Sukkur Barrage scheme is one that must be sanctioned by this house without any further delay. The scheme has now been brought before the Council after mature consideration. If the Council loses this opportunity it may never come at all.

       In 1907, while I was in Bombay I discussed the scheme with Dr. Summers for over twenty nights consecutively, setting a part two or three hours for this every day. At that time the scheme did not fructify. Engineer after engineer concentrated his attention over the scheme, conferences of officials and experts were held in the Government House, Karachi, where the scheme was carefully examined in all its aspects, and experts engineers were consulted on a number of points including those that may be urged against the scheme. The various districts were inspected and reports were submitted to Government. Government refused to sanction the same. (At this point the hon’ble member was inaudible.) Even two years before that in 1905, the question was considered. During the 18 years that have now elapsed, the scheme has been carefully examined by many experts besides those who have built up the scheme. Taking all this into consideration, I do not think any reason whatever can be urged against the scheme.

         The next point is about finance.  The financial aspect of the scheme has been gone into thoroughly and placed before the House after mature consideration. Mr. Harrison, and Mr. Mead who was held in great respect by this House, have expressed their satisfaction with regard to the financial aspect of the scheme. Therefore, we may rest assured that it has received mature consideration from beginning to end and that it is a sound one.

        I do not feel inclined to answer the several criticisms that have been urged against the scheme: but I would like to refer only to question of urgency. In the Punjab, irrigation has reached a high degree of efficiency. They are preparing scheme after scheme. There are now four schemes ready for putting into execution, including the Sutlej Valley scheme. If the Punjab schemes are completed, and if the Sukkur Barrage scheme is not taken up now, Sind will suffer considerably. Now the house will have to decide whether they propose to make Punjab wealthy by withholding their sanction to the scheme or they propose to sanction the scheme and make Sind and the Bombay Presidency wealthy. Now they have to choose between the two. (At this time the hon’ble member was inaudible.) Either the Punjab or Sind is going to have it. Which should have it, the Council will have to decide now. If you make Sind wealthy, it will be a great source of income to the Bombay Presidency. If you spend 18 crores now, you will derive immense profit a few years hence. Moreover this house will have to consider that by providing the Sukkur Barrage scheme they are profiting by 158 lakhs of rupees. To what all can this 158 lakhs of rupees be devoted: Just as you say it might be devoted for education. Education is cost a lot of money. You can meet it from profits from this investment or you can raise it by taxation. I appeal to this House not to make any mistake. The scheme is vital not only to Sind but to this Presidency, and I say you will make to mistake in passing the proposition that has been put forward.

        Mr. KALANDARBAKSH SUFI (Thar Parkar District) (Addressed the House in Sindi). Mr. President we are extremely glad to see that tue Sukkur Barrage is to be sanctioned as thereby Sind will be profited very much. Most of the population of Sind belong to the cultivating class and they solely depend on cultivation, but owing to deficiency of water they suffer hardships and are being looked upon with contempt as not being good cultivators. Truly speaking it is quite groundless to say that the Sindhis are not good cultivators. Sindhis are good cultivators, but the present canals cannot supply water at proper times and in sufficient quantity, and therefore they cannot cultivate their lands though they are eager to do so. The cultivators in the Punjab have had opportunities of cultivation for the last thirty years. If Sind cultivators get similar opportunities I hope they will prove better cultivators then the Punjabis.

       Many canals in Sind take water from the Indus when the level at Bukkur is about 6 ft. this happens in the last week of May or beginning of June. But for cultivation of cotton according to principles followed in America, we require water for the Crop in March or early in April, and that is why Sind cultivators cannot grow good cotton crop. Canals in Sind have their flow stopped in September, but for good cotton growth we require water till the end of October which we are unable to get. Then the rice crop requires water up to the 15th of November. As we do not get water at that period of the year, we undergo a great loss by failure of crops. The present canals do not ensure sufficient supply of water and therefore the zemindars are always uncertain of the supply and many a time their crops wither away with great loss to themselves and especially to the cultivators. Their labour of twelve months goes to waste. The rabi crop requires water from October to April but the flow of water in the canal stops in September and it becomes impossible to get water for the rabi crop.

        The full supply level at the Indus is 12ft. at Bukkur and this level is hardly reached once in the season, and at the most this happens in the end of July or in the beginning of August. For these reasons it is very essential to have the Sukkur barrage as early as possible for the sake of raising the level of water and keeping it under control. Sindhis have never kept back their help from the Presidency and at the present moment Sind expects that the Presidency will spare no pains in helping her with regard to the Sukkur barrage. If the Presidency raises objections and delays the passing of the resolution put before the Council it will be a sad thing and treat trouble to the poor cultivator of Sind.

In conclusion I appeal to honourable members of the Council to pass the resolution in this session of the Council.

                                                                                   After Recess.

        Mr. IBRAHIM S. HAJI (Bombay City): Sir, I do not think I should allow this resolution to be passed without congratulating His Excellency the Governor, the Honourable the Finance Member the Finance Member and Mr. Musto who have deal with the scheme in its different aspects and presented to the Council the scheme in its present shape. Sir, several amendments have been pressed, and the trend of these amendments is that certain safe-gourds should be placed in the body of the resolution in order that this Presidency as well as Sind may benefit by the scheme. I am sure that the success of the scheme depends much upon the land revenue which would be realized and which would be altered from year to year as the scheme goes on towards completion. As the scheme progresses the assessment which is to be obtained from land will be raised from the lowest to the maximum, and this maximum will have to be raised from the agricultural population in Sind. Now, it is stated that the scheme is meant for the good of the agricultural population in Sind. But I submit that to make the scheme as profitable as it has been shown, the assessment of land will have to be raised from year to year. And if the assessment is going to be very high, I am afraid the agriculturists will not be able to make the greatest benefit of that part of the land which will be put to cultivation by the perennial supply of water. As has been stated by the secretary of state for India, this Sukkur barrage scheme is intended to produce a greater supply of American and Egyptian cotton in Sind. At this stage it may not be out of place if I quoted the words of the Right Honourable Mr. Montagu.

     The Right Honourable Mr. Mortagu stated in Parliament in August 1921:--

       “The completion of the scheme would bring into cultivation an area roughly speaking, the size of Wales, which is now more or less dessert. The Barrage is intended to provide an assured and ample supply of water to grow Egyptian and American cotton in Sind, not only in the flood season, but all the year round, and the value of one year’s crops for the area, largely cotton, produced with the irrigation anticipated under the scheme is estimated at £20 million.”

        Sir, this of course gives apprehension to the minds of the honourable members who have spoken on this subject, particularly with reference to the financial aspect of the scheme, especially as the figures are estimated with great optimism, also given larger values to the areas which are going to be cultivated. The apprehension is that there will be lesser chances for the agricultural zemindars in Sind and there will be better chances for the cotton syndicates to purchases such areas and there by nullify the anticipations of the depressed people of Sind. I do not think, Sir that it was with this intention, namely, to have large crop of cotton that the original Sukkur barrage scheme was launched.  It was launched to enable the agriculturists to produce food crops, and I therefore ask this House that when they have to vote on the question they will do so by supporting the amendment of the Honourable the Deputy President to get the assurance from the Honourable General Member in charge of this resolution that the areas which will receive additional supply of water, areas which are now deserts, will be mostly given to and used by those zemindars who produce food crops.

       I then come to another aspect of this question of the Sukkur barrage, namely the loan. The capital must be borrowed as far as possible in Sind, in this Presidency and in this country. The Hounourable Member in charge ought to give an assurance to this House that foreign capital will not be borrowed as far as possible if it can be sufficiently collected from this Presidency or in this country.

       Then, lastly, the other point which I wish to place before this House is this, that a good deal of opposition to this resolution which has been expressed is not that the scheme is not properly considered in its technical aspect but with respect to its financial side. Much has been said on that point and I think much of the opposition will dwindle down if the Honourable Member in charge of this resolution gives assurance that the stores, men and the materials required are requisitioned from this country as far as possible and sale of land will be made for the benefit of the poor people and also that a forest syndicate in any respect whatever either of food-growing crops or non-food growing crops should be discouraged. If such assurance is given by the Honourable the General Member, I am sure the opposition will be withdrawn. I therefore support the resolution subject to the remarks I have made.

          Mr. M. W. PRADHAN (Thana District): Mr. President, I rise to support the resolution moved by the Honourable the General-Member and I do not support any of the three amendments thereto. And my reasons are that after having gone through the literature which has been supplied to the members of this Honourable House, and having regard to the Programmed that is contemplated in the Punjab, that is to say, that the Punjab Government is stealing a march over this Government by utilizing every possible gallon of water from the Indus for their own province, one must see that it accentuates the necessity of doing our work as quickly as possible. Simply looking at the scheme, thinking about it for generation together, will not do, A delay now will be suicidal. Other provinces of India have already done more, may I say, at the cost of Sind. Therefore, the necessity for accelerating the speed for this scheme. Secondly, Sir, when the scheme has received the cogitation and deliberation of Government for nearly a generation—a scheme which has been submitted to experts times out of number—and when so much in favour of the scheme has been placed by responsible men before us, is it reasonable that such a scheme should be endangered by any more postponement? Where would this House be if MR. Montagu had not accelerated the Government of India Act in time? If he had listened to the cries of halt from the opposite bench, then where would the Government of India Act be? Therefore when the scheme has received the best consideration of those responsible for it, it is natural that the pioneers of the scheme would be very anxious to see it carried through. Therefore, Sir, I say just as member after member from Sind says “Either barrage or no Sind”. The Punjab is stealing a rapid march upon Bombay and the scheme is therefore most urgent and requires to be accelerated. Delay is dangerous. I, therefore, hope that is Council will in this matter of practical politics show businesslike instinct and sanction the scheme at once.

             Mr. E. E. WOODS: Sir, when a work of such magnitude, as is involved in the construction of the Sukkur Barrage Project, is under consideration, the chief issues which arise in such a case and requires assurance as to their worth and reliability, are: Will the canals receive from the river and give in turn to the districts to be irrigated the full and constant supply of water allowed for? The correct design of barrage and attendant head works, etc., for the purpose intended, with special regard to the economical aspect of the case; the time proposed for the scheme to come into operation; the period prescribed for its ultimate completion; and lastly its total cost.

            From the voluminous reports on the subject submitted it I apparent that the project has been given careful thought and prudent consideration by those responsible for its inception and completion. Even details, however seemingly minute, appear to have received almost meticulous attention in the general purpose of design. These reports before us, I repeat show, that much time and a vast amount of labour have been bestowed on them, so as to make the entire scheme as now presented and as far as it is humanly possible to do so, a safe sure and a successful one. Indeed, it could hardly be expected that a responsible Government, in undertaking a work of such prime importance and requiring the expenditure of such huge sums of money, could deal otherwise than in a grave and deeply responsible manner towards it, before submitting the same for approval and sanction to this Council.

             It therefore follows that if Government are prepared to accept the heavy responsibility of constructing the barrage, canals, etc., and all that these works entail, at the same time to guarantee a definate perennial supply to all the distributary canals so made, and over and above this, to offer a positive assurance that the scheme will be a direct money earning proposition for the benefit of the general revenues of this Presidency at the expiration of a certain definite period, then it only remains for this honourable House to accept the privilege, and accord with grace and pleasure their sanction to this beneficial project, and to enable construction to be begun without delay.

          Thus will be inaugurated a work of immense usefulness and profit, a world record, and one to be remembered with feelings of gratitude and pride by the people of Sind in the years to come. With these remarks, Sir, I beg to support the original resolution before the House.

           Rao Saheb D. P. DESAI (Kaira Diistrict): Sir, the greatest scheme of irrigation—the greatest perhaps in the world—is before this House for approval and I earnestly request this House to consider the various points involved in the project submitted for its sanction. Somehow or other I am not personally convinced about the project as it is proposed and think that hitherto Sind has had practically no complaint whatsoever to make about a deficit in the supply of irrigation water. The only argument that is being advanced and that has been found by me as deserving some consideration from the papers is the argument that the season of 1918 was bad and crops worth 15 croes were lost on account of low inundation. Now comparing the crop reports of the whole Presidency with those of Sind for the year 1918, I find that that year was not better in almost all the districts of the Presidency. I shall just quote the total output per acre in that year in the cultivated areas in Sind and in the best cultivated parts of the Presidency proper. In 1918 Gujarat could produce one ton of rice for 7 acres, while Sind could produce the same quantity of the rice for 3.44 acres; and even taking the best of the rice producing tracts, I mean the Konkan, even there the figures as worked out by me stood at 3.81 acres per ton while for Sind the figures as stated above works out at 3.44 so far as rice is concerned. Again, while looking at the readings of the Bukkur Gauge from the year 1850 downwards to find out whether there was any there was any bad year in Sind, I could find only two namely, the year 1855 and another the oft quoted year of 1918. There were unfavourable seasons in the interim, but these unfavourable seasons may be said as on the whole not bad. Even in 1918 the corps that were produced were from 20 to 40 percent of the normal produce. If honourable members will refer to the latest Census report they will find at page 10 that the year 1918 was a bad year and the definition of a bad year given there in is that the crops produced should be from 20 to 40 percent. Considering therefore that it was a bad year still it could not be said to be a famine years as it could produce crops to the extent of 20 to 40 per cent. Owing to these reasons the argument of 1918 being a disastrous years does not hold good for incurring such a huge expenditure on such a large scheme as the Sukkur barrage. The main point which comes to my mind and which would come in the way of any perennial irrigation is the density of the population per culturable square mile. In Sind it is 124 per mile. Now for perennial irrigation I should think that density of population is too small. In the Punjab total population per square mile is about 245 so it must be larger per culturable square mile there……..

       The Honourable Khan Bahadur SHAIKH GHULAM HUSSAIN: including the desert?

        Rao Saheb D. P. DESSAI: I do not include the desert. Including cities and deserts the population in Sind would be 71 per mile. But if you take culturable area the population comes to 124 per culturable square mile, while the population in the Punjab including the desert and cities is about 245 per square mile. Therefore In order that perennial irrigation requires that all lands under such form of irrigation should be densely populated. If the scheme is launched without regard to the present density of population the result will be that there will be lot of irrigable area which would remain uncultivated and unoccupied for a very long time as it will be very difficult to induce local people to occupy that area and as cultivators will have more than enough work to do in their own fields, they naturally cannot abandon them for new areas however good they may be. My honourable friend the Minister for Public Works has referred to the Jamrao Canal. In this connection I might venture to say that I doubt whether my honourable friend has had experience of conditions that obtained on the Jamrao Canal since its construction. I should say he should have seen Jamrao Canal when it was completed and when the lands roundabout were brought under cultivation. I have not seen it myself, but I have of course enquired about it from the best authorities and I can say that the cultivation on the Jamrao Canal is in a very bad comdition and gross output must have decreased by 20 to 30 per cent. If the Honourable the Minister for Local Self-government is not sure about it, he can consult the officers of the Agricultural Department and they will bear me out. If the actual production per acre on the Jamrao Canal has been deteriorating to the extent of over 20 percent and if you have suffered on the Jamrao canal, I should say you should not try the same experiment on such a vast scale so as to prejudicially affect such a large part of Sind as is covered by the project.

       It may be that for the first five or six years or even, I am ready to accept, for the first ten years, people will be in a good condition, but after ten years the land will become exhausted and saltish; for the greater the quantity of water that is given to the soil without sufficient treatment, the greater will be the deterioration, as water is not the only factor to be considered in the cultivation of crops. You have so many other considerations to look to. You have the rotation of the crops to look to, proper treatment and manuring of the soil to look to, and along with these matters if it is considered that the Sindi cultivator is not accustomed to perennial irrigation, that the Sindi cultivator does not know intensive cultivation and the use of intercultural implements or rather that he knows only the use of one plough in many parts of the country, you will be convinced that it will be hazardous to introduce perennial cultivation on a large scale all of a sudden. You can introduce it only gradually. I do not mean to say that you should not build a barrage and all the canals, but you have to take these factors into consideration and construct them when found necessary. You suffered from deterioration of soil on the Nira bank canals. You have suffered from the very thing on the Jamrao canals and you will suffer from this on the on the Sukkur barrage canals also. So I should thing that progress should be gradual so that it may be sure and real.

           My honourable friend, the Minister for local self-government, stated that if they have no population they will import from the countries that he described, namely, Baluchistan, Mawar, cutch, Afghanistan and so on. I ask why should we look to foreign places to supply cultivators and labour for our lands? We cannot make sacrifices for others, we cannot afford to exhaust our soils for others. We have in Sind some of this foreign population. Why should we go on adding to this imported foreign population and at the same time make provision for them to the extent to which it is proposed to be done by the Honourable the General Member? I cry halt as it is a dangerous step. It is the business of these foreign territories to make provision for their own population. If you mean to say that you will take cultivators from the Gujarat and the Deccan over to Sind because some of the parts in these provinces are over-populated and are famine-stricken now and then, I cannot accept that. I would rather say that a Gujarati or a Deccan cultivator will never go outside his own country to take land in a desert at a cost varying from Rs.50 to Rs.250 an acre and make his living there where he will not have civilizing influences and where he will not have such economic benefits as railways, metal roads and other conveniences which he can find in his own country where lands also are cheaper than these new Sind lands.

          This brings me to the point of the prices that you have proposed for waste lands in the Barrage zone which vary from Rs.50 to Rs.200 and even Rs.250 per acre. Can you ever suppose that a man will pay on an average Rs.150 per acre for waste and undeveloped lands for a doubtful benefit? I can prove from the statement made by the Honourable the Finance Member that the value of the outturn per acre in Sind is about Rs.45. but you must remember that he said that the prices were very high because high prices were ruling at that time owing to war conditions. But even accepting his position, let us see what It amounts to. A man who earns Rs.45 in gross annually will have to pay Rs.20 purely as Government charge per acre and from the remaining amount of Rs.25 he will have to bear the cultivation and other charges. In arriving at this figure I have taken the assessment at Rs.5 per acre and the rate of interest at the co-operative rate of 10 per cent. On the value of land; so the total charges comes to about 20 and the gross production as stated above is 45 according to the Honourable the Finance Member; this charge at the outset is heavy. Even according to the forecast given in volume V, statement IIA, it will appear that the gross production of wheat at present is 10 maunds. Ten maunds at the present price of wheat (about Rs.5-8-0 at Karachi) would come to about Rs.55 per acre. Out of Rs.55 he has to pay Rs.20 as a Government charge in interest and assessment charges. It comes to more than 33 per cent. And out of the remaining 66 per cent. He has to find out remuneration for his cultivation, for his house, and for his maintenance. Again the entire capital required by a cultivator of 15 acres for the first year as calculated by me will be about Rs.2,200 either through private people or from Government (I know that reference has been made by any honourable friend from Larkana that there are rich bankers who can spare that amount of capital to a colonist, and if you can provide this, the total amount to be thus provided for would come to one crore of rupees every year for the agriculturists who take up and cultivate Government lands and in that case only I think some progress could be made, but otherwise the people that will take lands under this scheme will not be able to derive any profit from it.

      The Honouravle Khan Bahadur SHAIKH GHULAM HUSSAIN: Where did you get the figure of Rs.20 per acre as assessment?

        Rao Saheb D. P. DESAI: Not assessment, but Rs.5 as assessment and Rs.15 as interest on the cost of that acre, that is what I call the Government charge. Rs.15 is an annual charge for the cost of the acre purchased from Government. Now, another thing that has struck me is paragraph 7, page 37, of Volume II that is supplied to us. It appears from what is stated therein that since the opening of the Punjab canals, the water level at Bukkur has actually increased by over a foot, and that for the season from June to September in spite of Punjab withdrawals to a large extent, and if this were a fact, then it is for the technical advisors of Government to consider the point again whether any future withdrawals by the Punjab will affect the level at Bukkur.

        Now, I come to the right bank cultivation. As stated in Volume V, page 75, on the right bank, that is, in the Larkana district and the surrounding country about 8, 93,000 acres are at present under cultivation which will be increased to about 9, 34,600, in the seventh year after commencement of the works, the present assessment is about 27½ lakhs and in the seventh year the assessment will be Rs.42, 54,351.

       The Honourable the PRSIDENT: is should like to point out to the honourable member that the manner in which he is proceeding indicates that he is going to take considerably more time. He has had 20 minutes already, and, in fairness to all other members, I cannot allow him an indefinite period of time. He must conclude his observation within the next few minutes.

         Rao Saheb D. P. DESSAI: From that I find that while the assessments in the seventh year have increased by 50 per cent. The increase in cultivation is only about 5 per cent. Again, the gross present revenue of the barrage zone is Rs.61 lakhs and the cultivated area is 20 lakhs and in the seventh year there will be 22 lakhs of acres under cultivation and about Rs.97, 90,000 will be assessment. Now, it will appear that the assessment will be the assessment. Now, it will appear that the assessments have increased bt 62 per cent., and the area of cultivation has increased by 10 per cent., from about 20 lakhs now, in the seventh year it in 22 lakhs of acres in the whole barrage zone, and so the actual area will be increased about 2, 00,000 lakhs acres, that is, 10 per cent. Increase. It is doubt full whether a man who has to pay a certain amount of assessment during the sixth year will pay without grumbling about 60 per cent. More in the seventh year simply for an assured supply of water. I have found that in Larkana district there is an assured supply even at present. Of course there may be hard times, but whether those hard times are such as to make the ordinary cultivator give about 60 per cent. More assessment in the seventh year is the question. If you have to construct a barrage, you may construct it, but I should think that these financial parts require through reconsideration. It has been said that the Bombay Government has been indifferent to Sind in the past, but I want to bring to the notice of the Council that up to the year 1910over Rs.3 croes had been spent on irrigation in Sind, and from 1916-17 to 1922-23 another Rs.3 crores and 86 lakhs have been spent, in all making a total of over 7 crores. I therefore think that the rate at which we have been proceeding so far is a reasonable rate. All the same, if the barrage is found necessary, to protect Sind, I do not object to it, but I think the financial proposals should be carefully gone into by a committee of this House before the project is put into execution.

       Mr. LALJI NARANJI: Sir, I congratulate the Government on the commendable zeal, energy, enthusiasm and breadth of vision displayed to fully investigate the many difficult and contentious problems in the preparation of this great project, but at the same time I would draw their particular attention to the following remarks of a person like Sir John Benton, K.C.I.E., Retired Inspector-General of Irrigation, India, namely, “The execution for the carrying out of a work to a successful conclusion is another thing, to the framing of a project which may be anything but a success when carried out.” These are very important words, to which I have to draw the attention of Government. It is all very easy to frame big projects on paper which cost several crores. In recent days estimates of big projects costing several crores are taken with a light heart when in pre-war time it was difficult to find lakhs. I myself feel that there is a limit to the borrowing capacity of a province. By this project Government are going to make it possible for new land to be irrigated and made culturable, and the zemindars preferably of Sind are to take that land from them. Irrigation is a subject for which our country has for years insisted to spend money on, and our Government is to be congratulated on the very big attempt that they have made on the resolution of 7th October 1921 to induce the Government of India to share the liabilities of this scheme or to give material assistance by means of annual assignments from central to provincial revenues covering the whole of the interest up to 9th year to make the scheme practicable and profitable both to central and provincial revenues, but under the reforms as irrigation is a provincial subject those attempts were futile. However it is a praiseworthy attempt. The Honourable member the Registrar of Co-operative Societies referred to the timidity of certain member of this House on borrowing. I plead guilty to that charge and I say for myself I am timid in borrowing on the pledge of revenues of the provinces. I will refer to the figures of ordinary and productive debt that stood during the war. In 1916 ordinary debt went so low as 3 crores only out of total productive and unproductive debts of 418.2 crores. From the year 1917 to 31st March 1923 during six years our ordinary debt has swollen from 3 crores to roughly about 311 crores including sterling loans. India, instead of being a creditor country, is a debtor country now. These borrowings may be pleaded easy and productive but to my mind there must be a limit to borrowing. Many countries in Europe are evading their liabilities of borrowing. Even England approached America to reduce rates of interest. But India I do not think can ever do so to reduce rate of interest if the scheme proves anything but a success when carried out, according to the fears of Sir John Benton, Retired Government Irrigation Engineer. I am not going to say a word on the technical side of the project and I will accept in their entirety the conclusions arrived at on their risk by our Government and the Government of India and even the Secretary of State in his letter of 16th June 1921. But in the 5th paragraph of that letter the Secretary of State states:

“The obstacles to the immediate adoption of the scheme and to its early execution are financial.”

        Further on in the same paragraph it is stated:

       “One of these is the question whether any action at all should be taken in furtherance of schemes involving heavy borrowing over a period of years before the legislature concerned has been fully consulted.”

       I propose to address separately on these matters as soon as possible. Mr. President, even the secretary of State shirks all financial responsibility and draws attention to the fact that the obstacle to this scheme in the question of finance. The House must realise the financial responsibility it undertakes. It would have been a relief to this House to know what the Secretary of State had said after 16th June 1921 in connection with the question finance. From the despatch No.23-P. W. of the Government of India to the Secretary of State, it will be found that the estimate in 1914 was Rs.7, 81, 70,727, which has now been increased to 18 crores 35 lakhs, exclusive of the expenses for embankments to protect crops from flood which cost about Rs.2, 25, 19,000, roughly two and a quarter crores and expenses of survey costing Rs.8, 14,532. The honourable member representing the Bombay Millowners’ Association has already drawn attention to the fact that the papers on the subject were distributed allowing such a short interval that honourable members had not had time to make a study of them in order to find out how the financial position stands.

        I wish to draw the attention of the House to some of the most important aspects of this question. The cost of the estimate has increased by 250 per cent. Over the original estimate for reasons shown by Government and they are justified on the estimate they have submitted and we have to proceed on that. Certain statements that are made in the despatch No.23-P. W. and the subsequent despatch from late Mr. Mead and Mr. Harrison are so confusing that I have not been able to make myself certain of the figures; and I request the opposite bench to explain them to me. The total loan proposed to be raised is 22 crores 73 lakhs at the end of 15 years. In this pamphlet while dealing with the financial aspect Mr. Musto on page 51 says that the maximum amount of capital which must be borrowed will be 16 crores. He later on says:

         “The final capital invested will be Rs.1, 836 lakhs and the final net annual return as 15.6 per cent. represents a net profit to Government (after paying all interest charges) of 8.6 per cent. on the capital outlay or a net surplus of 158 lakhs per annum for the benefit of the general revenues of the province.”

            On these figures the House will have no objection to pass the scheme, but my request to the Honourable Member in charge is to assure te House by the enquiry of a committee that these figures are correct. If it is said that delay will be dangerous, I submit that the committee may be asked to report before the next session as to the exact financial position after obtaining all facts and letters of the Secretary of State and several figures referred to in several despatches which have regularly changed to suit objections raised. No one will oppose the resolution because irrigation schemes are essential to an agricultural country like India, even if they be at some sacrifice. But the Government ought to allow some time for honourable members to study the figures and satisfy themselves as to their correctness. It is very essential that, while the House is sanctioning such a big scheme which is said to be the biggest scheme in the world. It must consider it very carefully and not rush it through. Mr. Musto in his pamphlet says that if there are any mistakes we must not be held responsible. He has been very candid and honest in telling all these things; and I think also that Government have done everything possible to place before us all details. What only remains now is that we should study these details, understand them and satisfy ourselves. According to Mr. Musto the maximum amount of capital required to be borrowed is 16 crores of rupees. There must be some figures to show how they have calculated regarding the realization from the sale of lands.

         I now come to the remarks of the honourable member for Bombay Millowners’ Association and wish to draw his attention to his statement that realization will begin from th 6th year. According to the statement in the Government of India dispatch No. 23-P. W., on pages 9 and 10, the return after 15 years will be 5.14 per cent. on page 21 of the same dispatch it is stated at the end of the paragraph:

“It is said that on this most conservative basis project will be productive nine years after completion while the returns on the sum at charge, 10—20—30 years after completion are 5.57, 8.97 and 10.5 per cent. respectively.”

      To complete this scheme the minimum number of years estimated is 12; thus you will see it will be productive of 5.57 per cent. after 21 years.

       I do not understand the statements appended to the letter No. 880-A., which I may say is the last representation that has gone from the late Chief Secretary, Mr. Mead. The return goes on increasing up to 14.6 per cent. As I am not able to understand these figures, I want an explanation from the Honourable the Finance Member or whoever is concerned in preparing the figures. On page 4 of statement attached with the above letter it will be seen that from the 13th year the return will be from 6.13 per cent. rising to 14.6 per cent. in the 41st year. I cannot understand these figures and that is why I want an explanation. Then, Sir, there is one of the remarks made by the honourable member for Thana and also supported by the honourable member for the Millowners’ Association regarding the suspicion in the mind of some people –this was laughed at by the members on the opposite bench—that the lands may be sold to foreign interests. The remarks of the Secretary of Sated as reported in the Reuter’s cable dated London June 2nd arouse suspicion in our minds that something is being done on this line.

       “Speaking at the banquet given by the British Cotton Ginning Association in Manchester yesterday, Earl Winterton said there was a distinct movement in India towards more reciprocity with Lancashire interest. He referred to the eventual great effect on production of cotton in Sind from the Sukkur Barrage Scheme, which Viscount Peel has now finally sanctioned.

         The fact that at least half a million acres suitable for growing the best type of American Cotton would thereby ultimately become available ror development, was a feature in the worlds cotton situation or really first class importance.”

       The Honourable Mr. H. S. LAWRENCE: It does not refer to Sukkur Barrage.

       Mr. LALJI NARANJI: There is a passage in which, reference Is made to Sukkur Barrage, which is from the cutting of June 4th, 1923, Times of India, “Outlook in India, Earl Winterton’s Optimisms.” The Secretary of State, says that there was a distinct movement in India towards more reciprocity with Lancashire interest. We do not know how that can be possible. If they are going to take cotton from us and supply us cloth we will fight for our existence and even European members of commerce have always been one with us in saying that the interests of India should be placed foremost. I think myself that there is ground for suspicion and Government will do well to remove that suspicion by giving an assurance that no interest other than Indian will be recognised in the allotment of lands for irrigation without the sanction of this House.  

       Then again there is one passage in the secretary of State’s telegram, and I am very inquisitive to know, and House will be glad to know, what this passage means. I am not going to refer portions of the telegram referred to by the Honourable the Deputy President, but I am referring to the following passage:

        “I note objections taken by local Government and shared by you to employment of private agency and I understand offer which I had in view is likely to the withdrawn.”

         I should like to know whether our Government was at all in communication with the secretary of state in connection with this matter. If there was a proposal that some private agency should be employed, is it fair that this House should be asked to sanction the scheme without knowing the full details. It may be true that the local Government have fought against the employment of private agency, but I suspect myself—I am candid –that there must be some scheme by which some syndicate might have approached Government, and I would ask Government to give an explanation of the offer made.

         Then there is another point made by the honourable member for the Millowners’ Association, which I will repeat. It is very important that the stores required for this project should be purchased in the cheapest market. With regard to that, I will give important information to this House and the members of the Government, which if they want to, they can take advantage of. If this resolution is passed the members of this Council will have no control over the Government. Some of the members hold that we have, but I think it is not possible. Once the supplementary grant is sanctioned, that money will be spent immediately, and from our experience of the past we are not encouraged to believe things will be bought in the cheapest market.  I have got hear quotations of prices from European firms—they are not Indian firms, but agents of manufacturers themselves. The quotation shows the ups and downs of prices during the last few years. From the year 1915, prices went up to 300 and 400 per cent. and they have now come  to 50 per cent. above pre-war prices. These are quotations from responsible firms. In 1921 the German makers had come down to the pre-war prices. Textile machinery has come down from 260 per cent. to 80 per cent. increase. If advantage is taken of this downwards movement prices, there will be a big saving on the 18 crores estimated, and if so, the scheme will be a big success.

        To improve the financial aspects of the scheme Mr. Musto has given on page 46 of the pamphlet various means. He gives as (d) “increasing the area of lands to be disposed of, and the price at which it should be sold.” I am not hazarding on opinion on the prices of land, because I am not an agriculturists, but I would point out to the House that this is a point which must also be enquired into by those persons in Sind who know all about land.

         One point more, and that is about the yield per acre of cotton. I know only about cotton, and I will not say anything about wheat or rice. The average yield that Government themselves have given is 85 Ibs. Per acre. It is stated that it went up to 160 Ibs. per acre in the Punjab. The estimate now made is 250 Ibs. per acre. I do not know how they support it. That is also point on which I would like to have an explanation from the Bombay Government, because there is suspicion raised by the correspondence between the secretary of state, the Government of India and the Bombay Government.

        Another that I would like to draw attention to is that honourable members must have known already that the quality of cotton in the Punjab by continuation of crop without rotation has much deteriorated. But from our experience we find that for the last two years the quality of that cotton has deteriorated so much that it is difficult to believe that there will be much demand for that cotton. It may be, as the Honourable Minister told us, that every year there may be cotton produced. It is within the knowledge of all of us, but I would point out to him that for the last two years American seed in Punjab cotton have gone equal to the quality as Bengal cotton.

        The Honourable Member in charge should give an explanation about all these matters. There are several reasons for supporting the resolution; there is no reason for obstructing the resolution, but I will only say that there are several points on which Government should satisfy the House by suitable explanations, and till these explanations come I support the Honourable the Deputy President. With these words I resume my seat.

       The Honourable the PRESIDENT: As several speeches have been made from the no-official benches I should now like to have some speeches from the official benches.

        Mr. C. S. C. HARRISON: Mr. President, honourable members have criticised some of the technical points and more fully the financial points dealing with this scheme before the House. They have one and all, however more or less agreed on the technical points with the original mover of the resolution and the objections are therefore not so much on the technical points. But I think, in view of remarks made by certain honourable members from a commonsense point of view, I should like to add a few words on the subject. Fears have been expressed of the possibility of faulty estimates. I can only deal in general terms with this and other criticism as there is still much to be spoken of in detail. The honourable member for Ahmedabad have spoken of the possibility of faulty estimates of work and financial prospects as has been the case in certain Deccan canals. Fears have been expressed that the estimates of the cost of construction may prove faulty and so lead to serious excesses, and that the financial forecasts have been prepared with too much optimism. The Deccan canals have been quoted as instances where expenditure has greatly exceeded the estimates and, although it has not been so expressly mentioned, that financial forecasts have not been fulfilled.

     As an engineer who has had many years’ experience of the actual construction of two of the modern systems of Deccan canals and who has had the advantage of touring throughout Sind and studying engineering conditions in that province, I can assure the House that from the estimator’s point of view Deccan conditions are extremely difficult whilst Sind conditions are comparatively simple. Without any very heavy expenditure on prolonged detailed preliminary investigations the engineer in the Deccan is faced with unknown under-surface conditions. As an example I can quote the case of rock. It is one of the enemies of the engineer in the Deccan. We may have excavated trial pits at very short intervals and then nature comes against us by letting the rock appear where we never expected it. We have no such tricky conditions in Sind. Rock, which, as I have said, is one of our enemies, may cost us ten times as much as earth and we do not meet with it in Sind. In Sind we have no rock or unknown and greatly varying conditions to face when excavating canals. We have also in the Deccan other causes that lead to excess over estimates, such as heavy rainfall falling when we least expected it. It is not so in Sind. There is practically no rainfall in Sind.

        The actual rates embodied in the estimates for the canals portion of this scheme were based on the employment of manual labour. We have since had time to go into the question of mechanical aids for excavating canals and our investigations show that we can tackle all the heavy excavation work by mechanical means with a very safe margin over our estimated rates. It is very easy, Sir, to be very optimistic and I am therefore not prepared to mention the savings that I expect by using mechanical means. I myself was greatly surprised after my sixteen odd years’ experience of manual labour in the Deccan to find that there was such great scope for mechanical aids in Sind. We have no rock in Sind; we have no boulders, and we have no murum to deal with. We have to deal with soil of a softer kind. Sir, I repeat that in my investigations I have found safe margins which I do not care to express to the House.

         We shall, therefore, start on these canals with the prospect of cheap and expeditious work and not have to relay solely on getting vast numbers of labourers. A work of this magnitude means thousands and thousands of labourers. We propose to concentrate as much manual labour as we can on the barrage supplemented very largely by mechanical means both in and out of the river. We have at this present time machines that will deal with excavation, the largest possible excavation, bigger than even the Suez Canal, and each of the biggest machines will replace more than 1, 600 labourers and those—and those of the physical calibre of the Pathans.

        The construction of the Sukkur Barrage is a different matter, for here we have to deal with a mighty river. Every item from the simplest to the most difficult has to be studied in all its aspects. We feel satisfied after some study and then we begin to see further difficulties and we have to re-study again. I claim, Sir, that the engineer who framed the designs and estimates of this great work have exhaustively considered every problem that human mind can possibly conceive as likely to arise during construction. Years of thought have been expended and I claim that we have before us an estimate as carefully and as soundly prepared as that of any of the great engineering works that have been undertaken by man. I ask you, Sir, and the House to accept as safe the estimates for the barrage and canals. They are the product of no hurry and scurry, but of years of unremitting, anxious and able consideration. The forecasts have been prepared in great detail and on a conservative basis.

      Criticisms, outside this House, have been levelled against the estimates and forecasts, and much has been made of remarks made by Mr. Musto by writing to the press and otherwise that the officer concerned confused that the project was a ‘rush job’. He was pressed at the last moment to submit estimates by a certain time; he was pressed with work day and night. Much, I say, has been made of these remarks. The detailed study of the great problems was in no way rushed. The final submission of the papers only was ‘rushed’. This is a very different matter.

       I ask the House, Sir, to take that expression ‘rush job’ out of their mind. The project has taken 20 years. Mr. Musto and the officers entrusted with its final preparation have been working at it since 1910. He and the many others have tried to do their best, and I trust that the House will give their decision by accepting the barrage scheme—the product of no hurry and scurry, but of years of unremitting, anxious and able consideration.

         The forecasts have been prepared in great detail and on a conservative basis, but this has been doubted. Criticisms outside the House have been levelled against these forecasts. They have been criticised in this House. We have welcomed and fair honest criticism and by these criticisms we have been able to re-assure ourselves that the forecasts are sound, safe and may be relied upon. It is very delightful, Sir, when any on doubts one’s work to be able to turn and look up facts and find that you have not strained the case, and are thus able to make you case stronger still.  On each occasion when our forecasts have been doubted we have been able to look into them again and have felt more and more assured that they have been on the safe side. Certain honourable members have said that when position has arisen we have turned round and made people believe that we have produced something better. I think it is a very glorious position to be able to return and find that you can produce something better.

        Comparison between the forecasts and actual realizations have been held up as regards the Deccan canals and we are asked to state whether we can give an assurance that the forecasts for the barrage scheme will be more reliable than those for the Deccan.

    As in the case of works estimates for the Deccan, which I have just deal with, so in the case of revenue forecasts. In the Deccan we have had to place canal irrigation as an unknown theme before the cultivators. We have been faced by that uncertain but persistent competitor of irrigation—the monsoon. We have had to educate the cultivator who, for long centuries, has struggled to grow crops with the aid of rain, to learn to practice and believe in canal irrigation.

        In Sind we have no such novel features. The cultivator has for long centuries depended almost entirely on irrigation for raising his crops. He looks upon irrigation water as his one and only standby. We have only to create the facilities for a good and reliable supply of canal water for the cultivator of Sind to seize his great opportunity.

I ask the House to give this certain opportunity to the cultivators of Sind in all its best aspects and we may feel sure, Sir, that after years of uncertain supply no landholder, large or small, will let the golden opportunity slip by. Long standing prejudices die slowly and we have in our forecasts prepared for this gradual death.

       We have not, as many honourable members of this House think and as also it is thought by some people outside this House, attained in this project novel irrigation for Sind. In the Deccan we have had to educate the people to take to this great idea. Despite the difficulties canal irrigation has to face in the Deccan we claim a no uncertain degree of success. I speak feelingly on the subject. I have served in the Deccan and when I was in the barren desert which the honourable member for Ahmednagar knows well, I used to be told that nothing could be done there and when the Deccan canals were projected many people were up against the project. But I think we have made the soil yield its quota though under less critical conditions than in Sind, and it will be seen that all the adverse criticism that is hurled at the Deccan canals—the Nira Left Bank canal—which started to irrigate some 25 years ago was forecasted to irrigate some 43,000 acres of mixed crops. Despite ups and downs during the years of tuition we had in the year 1920-21 no less than 73,000 odd acres of irrigation, an increase over the original forecast of no less than 70 per cent. in the year under consideration this canal showed a return of 11.09 per cent. on the capital outlay and 8.75 per cent. on the sum at charge. I claim, Sir, that this is no mean achievement. The other modern Deccan canals, the Godavari and pravara, are yet young and there is no reason to suppose that they will not prove as good investments. Moreover, the value to the state of these canals is not to be measured solely in the terms of a direct percentage return on the sum at charge. The indirect benefits are immense. They are a most valuable form of insurance which is demonstrated in years of scanty rainfall.

      What has been successfully done in the Deccan can be done in Sind with still greater success. As I have said, we have allowed for a long period in which to work up to our final results and we may safely feel assured of great success. We have as a guide to the possibilities of the future the great example of the Punjab. The success achieved in the Punjab can and will be achieved in Sind. There have been many croakers in the past in the Punjab. Engineers in the Punjab and cultivators did not hesitate to go in for big schemes. I can assure the House that there will be a very great joy among some of the Punjab engineers and Punjab cultivators if the scheme is not accepted by this House or is a little delayed. They are awaiting their opportunity.

       The Honourable member for Thana has suggested that there is no urgency to take in hand his project and that further consideration of the scheme might be postponed for some months. A diagram has been placed in the adjoining library. I hope honourable members will see that diagram which shows the condition of the river Indus at Bukkur and Kotri and this shows what the danger to Sind is, and the danger upper Sind has to face. Those ink marks on the paper are to us the ‘writing on the wall’ so far as Sind is concerned. The lower heavy line drawn in the diagram shows how our source of life is getting less and less and the Punjab is waiting to make it still shorter.

       The honourable member for Karachi gave us a very admirable exposition of the day that we might have to face. He spoke very strongly. He could not speak too strongly. He is a member outside the Government circle and a shrewd on-looker of this scheme and I think he has rightly laid great emphasis on the grave danger of Sind that would be caused by delay in sanctioning and starting this scheme. The heavy and continued rabi withdrawals in the Punjab at present gravely threaten the rabi supplies to the whole Eastern Nara system and the Sukkur Canal. If we build our Sukkur Barrage now, as has been pointed out, we will be in a position to say “Hands off” to the Punjab who are now threatening to cut off our rabi supplies. If we do not do that now, we shall have to fight, I am afraid, a losing battle with our backs to the wall, and for this reason I feel confident that every honourable member, when he comes to deal with this resolution finally, will do so with extreme care and circumspection. During the period of 20 years from 1897 to 1917, the Punjab has drawn off no less than 46,000 cusecs which is a considerable increase. We are now faced with a further withdrawal of some 30,000 cusecs by the Sutlej Valley Scheme which they are making an organized effort to push through to completion whilst we sit and discuss the Sukkur Barrage Scheme. They propose to take many more thousand cusecs directly from the tributaries of the river Indus in every year. The Sutlej Valley Scheme has already stolen a march on us of two years. Every day that we delay in making up for lost time puts us in a weaker position. I may perhaps mention, Sir, what some of the Jamrao cultivators said to me when I was last touring in that tract. It has been stated in this House that the Jamrao cultivator’s land has been ruined; the honourable member who made that statement admitted, I know, that the information he got was mere hearsay. The Jamarao cultivators came to me in a mass and asked whether the Sukkur Barrage was sanctioned. They said to me “Give us the water and we will show you, we will show Sind and we will show the Punjab what can be done in Sind”. These people came to Sind from outside, but they have lived amicably with the Sindhis and whatever friction there is, is negligible indeed. Our Sindi friends have learnt to do what the Punjabis have one. In fact we shall be justified in calling these Punjabi ‘Sindi’ cultivator as they have been in Sind long enough to earn a title to the name ‘Sindi’. The Punjabi cultivator has been given the opportunity to show what could be done. Let us give the Sindi cultivators a similar opportunity to show what can be done in Sind, let us give them the opportunity of an assured water supply.

      The honourable member for Poona criticises the financial results of the Jamrao, Nasrat and Dad canals as failures. I am glad he brought forth this point. He quoted the financial situation of the Jamrao canal. This and the other canals have never paid because we have never had the water to guarantee them to pay. We can never get success in any business until we have some financial backing. We require the Sukkur Barrage to give us that backing and we ask, the Sindhis ask and I ask on behalf of the whole Presidency and for the benefit of this Presidency, that your support should be given to this scheme will not only give the Sindhis the required backing to enable them to make good but will provide the Bombay Presidency with an eventual annual surplus of over one million sterling.

     I have spoken of the dangers of the Punjab withdrawals. We are, I solemnly say, Sir, thus fighting with our backs to the wall. It has been said that if we pass this resolution to-day we shall be guilty of having rushed it through. This scheme has given not only Government officials but Sindhis sleepless nights on what we all hope is the most remote possibility of this scheme being rejected, of the resolution before the House being rejected. We feel confident that the Council will come to the aid of the Sindhis and to their own aid as by directly benefiting the Sindi they will indirectly benefit the Bombay Presidency proper to the tune of 1½ crores of rupees annually. As I said, we are fighting with our backs to the wall and if the House does not arrive at a satisfactory solution of this problem on which the very life of the Sindhis depends, it will be too dire a calamity to contemplate.

       Mr. B. P. PATEL (Ahmedabad District): Mr. President, the resolution in question being important in every respect, and already discussed in year 1921, I cannot help supporting it as a land holder and the representative of the landholders. As 40 lakhs of acres of waste land will be cultivated and made productive for a good many kinds of crops, I hope the resolution will receive unanimous and hearty support at the hands of this Council. I need not remind the House that such a barrage and a system of canals will surely protect Sind from famine and the Sindi cultivator will not have to depend solely and entirely on the eccentricities of rainfall. In Gujarat the situation is different, there are no canals and barrages and we are often visited by the direst of famines. There was a project of constructing canals at Sabarmati from Kari Koba village but financial stringency killed it in its inception, although it is only a matter of fifteen lakhs of rupees and although in Sind and the Deccan a considerably larger sum than that has had to be sunk on irrigation schemes. I hope the Council will see to this also in order to save Gujarat from frequent scarcity. There is a small khari cut canal in our taluka but being too small even for 27 villages growing rice crops only, as the honourable member, the Chief Secretary, Mr. Chatfield, is perfectly aware of. With these words I support the resolution before the House.

       Mr. B. G. PAHALAJANI (Western Sind): Mr. President, to the opinion which I expressed while moving my resolution on this subject in October 1921, I have every reason to adhere on the present occasion, and, whole-heartedly supporting the resolution now moved by the Honourable the General Member and in refusing to support the amendments that have been moved by different honourable members in this House, t think I have not much to say because none of the three amendments purposes anything definite to be done or propose any definite advantage to be gained by postponing the discussion of this resolution for any length of time. One of the amendments proposed has been moved by my honourable friend from Poona (Dewan Bahadur Godbole) for whose engineering knowledge and skill I have very great respect. His amendment only proposed that this barrage should be constructed by stages. Dr. Summers (for whom I have the greatest respect) once opposed the construction of this barrage. If you want to begin the barrage, you must construct all at the same time. In spite of my very great respect for Dr. Summers, whom I consider still one of the ablest engineers in India, I cannot agree with this scheme that the Rohri canal should be built without the barrage. The reason is simple: The Left Bank canal can be allowed to draw away water to the detriment of the Right Bank, nor can it supply a steady level without the barrage.

       I do not intend to expatiate on the merits of the question; enough to say that from the financial and from every other point of view, especially from the point of view of the concentration of work which this huge scheme must involve, also from the political point of view, it is safer and better that all the three scheme should proceed together—political point of view because here the Baluch country outlying on the frontier and the interests of all the parts of the country have to be taken into consideration.

         Now, Sir, so far as the amendment of the honourable member from Poona is concerned, an objection is raised to the absence of a lock for passage of boats. The honourable the Registrar of Co-operative Societies has already dealt with the point, but I would go a step further and say, being a resident of Sukkur for the last 26 years, that the whole of the boat traffic is concentrated at Sukkur and up to Sukkur. The reason is clear. The mouth of the river at Karachi is 32 miles from Karachi. It lies in a country where the sea produces salty marshes, and where no Government servant is anxious to stay, because he has often to take leave on account of malaria. Those are places where no boats can go. The next stopping place is Kotri, a small town in no way dependent on boat traffic. Hyderabad is a large town 3 miles away from Gidu Bunder, a mere village which is situate on the river. Being distant from Hyderabad it is not possible on grounds of conveyance charges for any boat traffic to concentrate at Gidu Bunder. On economic grounds, therefore, Sukkur, which is situated on the banks of the river, only 30 feet away from the river, where boat traffic can be concentrated and where there are godowns to receive the goods, has special advantages: and as the honourable member the Registrar of Co-operative Societies has pointed out, once tradition makes a place centre of commerce, that tradition and that system continue for centuries: and in spite of the construction a railway across the bridge which carries goods direct from the Punjab to Karachi, Sukkur has not lost materially this position. I believe it can be taken safely—and Government have so taken it—that Sukkur is a terminal for boat traffic; if one or two per cent. go beyond Sukkur the scheme provides that there should be two ports for boats, one on the left side of the bridge and the other one the right side of the regulator. That has been provided for so far as boat traffic is concerned, and there is no difficulty about it.

       Let me now proceed to the consideration of the amendment of the Honourable the Deputy President. As a member from Sind, as a member from a country which requires and requests him to assist on its improvement, I would ask him whether he wants a committee to shelve the scheme. I think he will at once say “No”. Every member, and particularly honourable members from Gujarat and the Deccan, will admit that the matter should be shelved. If it is not intended that a committee should be appointed to look into the financial question, barring the Government benches which are certainly partial to the scheme, may I ask whether there is any other member in the House who is an expert in this matter, except the honourable member from Poona who is in favour of the scheme? Is there any other honourable member who can in any way successfully challenge the figures of the Government, so as to determine from the financial point of view the no-feasibility of the scheme? With due respect to my honourable colleagues, if the amendment is carried, beyond the fact that a committee might be appointed, I do not think there would be any non-official experts on the committee who can meet and challenge the Government so far as these estimates are concerned. I will at once admit that a perusal of the financial results will convince anybody, including the Government, that there are certain assumptions made which may not develop to be correct. With due respect to the Superintending Engineer for Sind irrigation, I may even assert that there are exaggerations made, and the rate of return might be reduced from 14 per cent. to 8 per cent., but I do not think, under any circumstances, with the greatest discount placed upon the Government calculations, we can reduce the profit beyond 8 per cent. I would therefore put it to the Honourable Deputy President and to the House if they would not be prepared to sanction the scheme if the Government guaranteed a return up to 8 per cent. if can assure the House from the figures, leaving the greatest discount an margin for the exaggeration that every estimator usually introduces, that 8 per cent. is the minimum that will be the outturn, then I think every member of this House will join me in carrying the whole scheme through at once. The doubts arose naturally in this way in the mind of the Honourable the Deputy President from the fact that the Government began to give different figures from time to time: I shall show how this change in the figures has been effected: All the calculation in the scheme are based on two factors—the intensity of cultivation and duty: intensity is the proportion of area brought under cultivation to the total holding. The duty is the acreage that can be cultivated by one cusec of water (a cubic foot of water per second flowing for the cultivation period). Mr. Beale, the Chief Engineer and secretary to the Government in 1915, reported that in Sind the cultivator could raise rabi so as to bring it on a par with the kharif acreage—that is, in the proportion of 1:1. The duty assumed by the Government there was 50 acres for rice and 60 acres for jowari and other rabi crops and 100 for rabi (wheat). These are the figures in volume II. In 1918, Messr. Baker and Lane reported again on this matter. Mr. Baker stated that he found people on the Rohri side willing to cultivate rabi in preference to kharif. On that statement that the rabi should exceed the kharif, estimates began to be made. Jamrao is a perennial canal: figures of flow on it have been assumed for the purpose of this estimate. Everything in connection with the Government estimates depends on two circumstances, namely, the duty on one side and the acreage that can be cultivated on the other. While the Government and the Chief Secretary to Government 1915 refused to admit that more than 1 to 1 of kharif and rabi could be cultivated, the present figures assume that 81 acres out of 100 would be cultivated, if sufficient water was available, 54 for wheat and 27 for kharif. That has changed the figures and the calculations. The canal now has been devised on the assumptions that 30 years hence the kharil go back and rabi will advance. Government has accepted Mr. Baker’s statement and the whole of the calculation has been based on that. I may mention at once that even the dispatch of the Government of India to the Secretary of State seems sceptical about these figures. But at the same time you will find on page 7 of the Government of India’s letter to the Secretary of State that they calculate 8 per cent. profit on the assumption that the total intensity of cultivation will be from 50 to 60 per cent. I am quoting all these figures to show that eliminating all the exaggerated estimates of the Engineering Department, that at least 61 per cent. intensity of cultivation can be achieved by the construction of the barrage and that this will bring in a net profit of 8 per cent. If you are satisfied that 8 per cent. is assured, then there can be no reason whatever for postponing the scheme. We, of course, are going to sanction the scheme as responsible members of the Legislative Council; and we, who ought to be in charge of the finance, must get an assurance from Government that, unlike the Bombay Development, these estimates will not be exceeded. We have just now listened to the sympathetic and a very sincere speech of the Superintending Engineer in charge of the Barrage; he has given an undertaking on behalf of Government and on behalf of himself. I hope the Honourable Member in charge will endorse it and assure the Council that the present estimates will not be exceeded. If the undertaking is given, the Government is sure to take care to see that the estimate is not exceeded; and the House may rest assured that 18 crores plus interest paid out of capital will be the amount that will be expended.

      One other circumstance which I wish to bring to the notice of the Honourable General Member is this. As regards the establishment, the Government of India’s letter provides for one Chief Engineer, two Superintending Engineers and nine Executive Engineers. But I am credibly informed that the establishment intended to be employed is one Chief Engineer, six Superintending Engineers and 29 Executive Engineers. The House must be given an assurance by the Honourable the General Member that the establishment shown in the dispatch of the Government of India will not be exceeded, especially the superior establishment. I think the 22½ per cent. establishment charges is rather too high; even according to the standard of the Secretary to Government, P. W. D., it ought not to exceed 17 per cent. I hope the engineer in charge and the Honourable Member in charge will play their attention to this matter.

     Lastly, I wish to say a few words on a matter which is more or less a personal one: a matter that has been noticed in one of the volumes before us. It is with respect to the cremation ground. It is situate on the river bank within easy reach of the river and at the end of an avenue of shady trees: it is intended to remove this cremation ground. The Hindu population of Sukkur are very sensitive on the subject. During his Excellency’s last tour in Sind, I had brought this grievance specially to his notice and he had been pleased to visit the spot: I had pointed out to him in the presence of Mr. Harrison and the Collector of Sukkur the undesirability of its removal and the responsibility of finding another suitable place near enough to be used during the scorching heat of summer or the cold blasts of winter. His Excellency had then impressed on the officers in charge the desirability of acquiring land, if removal of the cremation was considered necessary, nearer the town. This is a matter which is exercising the mind of the Hindus of Sukkur and requires to be very seriously considered to prevent any completions arising. I consider it my duty to bring this matter to the special notice of the Honourable Member in charge and the Council. In conclusion, I submit that there is no danger in sanctioning that the scheme at once.

     Mr. A. A. MUSTO: Sir, much has been said on both sides and there is very little left for me to say. There seems to be some misapprehension in the minds of honourable members which I may be able to remove. The honourable member for Poona has questioned the estimated 81 per cent. intensity of cultivation, and alleged that it was excessive. He said that in Egypt land can only bear wheat in one year out of three. The honourable member does not seem to realize the method of wheat cultivation in Egypt. There it is grown by rotation, but is a double crop, i.e., grown in the same year as another crop on the same land. There are two kinds of irrigation: perennial and basin. The basin system more or less corresponds to the inundation canal system in Sind. Every acre of culturable land on Egypt is cultivated every year, and much of it is cropped twice per year.

        In 1917, the area of land under perennial irrigation was 4,150,000 acres, and on this area 6,670,000 acres of crops were grown, or an intensity of 161 per cent., just double the final intensity we estimate for Sind, while there were 1,245,000 acres of land under basin irrigation, on which 1,245,000 acres of crops were grown, or an intensity of 100 per cent. So that in the whole of Egypt on a total irrigated area of 5,395,000 acres there were 7,915,000 acres of crops, or an average intensity of 147 per cent.

         But I personally would deprecate going to Egypt for a comparison with possibilities in Sind, when we have almost identical conditions of soil, water, climate and people, in the adjoining land of the Punjab. I will give actual figures for three years on the lower Chenab Canal in the Punjab.

         Dewan Bahadur K. R. GODBOLE: How long has that canal been working?

        MR. A. A. MUSTO: The culturable area commanded is 2,581,000 acres out of a total gross area of 3,384,000 acres. For the triennium ending 1919-20 the average area irrigated was 2,357,000 acres, or an intensity of 91 per cent. Of culturable. In1919-20 the area irrigated was 2,455,000 acres, or 95 per cent. intensity, and in 1920-21 the area irrigated was 2,396,000 acres of 93 per cent. intensity. These figures compare with the estimated final intensity shown in the project for that canal of 56 per cent. intensity. In other words they have nearly doubled their estimated intensity. For the Sukkur Barrage canals we have estimated for an intensity of only 81 per cent., of culturable when full development is reached 30 years after the completion of the canals.

       Now, another point that the honourable member from Poona urged was about population. It is a difficult matter to calculate and demonstrate. But I have gone into this matter very carefully and details will be found in Appendix B, Vol. VI. Since then I have calculated the labour required for each crop, and I have found that the present population in Sind is sufficient for all our estimated cultivation up to the eleventh year. Thereafter and increase in population will be necessary. The honourable member from Poona calculated the actual growth of population in Sind for the last 20 years, and he based his estimate of growth of population for the next twenty years on that growth. He gave an equal growth for the two periods.  I submit that that is not a fair calculation. It is an admitted economic fact that the growth of population increases with the growth of prosperity. As people become more prosperous, they eat better food, live under more healthy conditions, mortality decreases, and they produce more children. I think that is a recognized economic fact. Moreover, the honourable member’s figure for the growth of population for the last twenty years have been affected by the great drain on the population during the last decennium, owing to the influenza epidemic, which appeared before the last census, and which made a great inroad on the population.

     The honourable member for Kaira questioned the valuation shown for the scales of land in the sixth at Rs.150 per acre, and he proceeded to show that with interest at 10 per cent. or Rs.15 a year, and water cess at Rs.5 or Rs.10, he was not sure that there would be any margin of profit for the cultivator. Well, those cultivations may be very true academically. If so, may I ask how does the Punjab agriculturist make a handsome profit? At the last auction sales by the Punjab Government, the price realized for land of average agricultural quality was over Rs.1,000 per acre. That statement is taken from the Punjab administration Report.

    Dewan Bahadur K. R. GODBOLE: Has this been realized in the rural areas?

    Mr. A. A. MUSTO: Yes. The price is for land of average agricultural quality.

Sir, many of the speakers adopted a rather pathetic note in appealing to the honourable House. It is true that Sind does need this project and that the people of Sind will be in extreme distress but for it. But I am personally inclined to adopt a more cheerful note. It is true that Sind does need this project and cannot do it without the assistance of Bombay. This project is required as a protective project, but it is also a productive project, and Sind will pay very handsome very handsomely for the accommodation that the Presidency is asked to give beyond the contribution of 10 lakhs per annum from Famine Grant. That contribution can be logically defended, since Sind has contributed for many years to the finances of the province, and has had nothing from it. If necessary the 2 crores to be obtained from the famine fund could be rapid also, after the project becomes productive. All that Sind asks is that the province should lend her credit, and borrow the money at present; eventually Sind will repay every pie that you pay on her behalf and she will finally pay a very large surplus—one and a half crores per annum—into the general coffers of the Presidency.

    The honourable member representing the Indian Chamber of Commerce questioned the accuracy or rather asked for some explanation of the various figures of the cost of the project to be found in the various statements placed before the House, and in my pamphlet. He asks for explanation of the figures in the “Future of Sind”. There the total capital is shown as 18, 36 lakhs. That is the total capital outlay on works estimated in the original forecast. Then he wishes to know why 22, 00 lakhs is shown. That is the total capital plus the accumulated arrears of interest. Up to date figures are shown on page 4 of the Statement V circulated with the papers. 18,36 lakhs is the capital required for direct and indirect expenditure, that is the actual capital consumed in the work. The balance—437 lakhs—is required to meet accumulated arrears of interest. Eventually when the project begins to be productive, the accumulated arrears of interest will be paid off from surplus revenue, and the ultimate capital invested will be 18,36 lakhs. The figure of 16 crores mentioned on page 51 as the maximum to be borrowed remains. I am speaking from memory. As far as I remember I took 24 crores as the total capital including arrears of interest as the cost of this work. That capital is reduced by surplus revenues. In the statement form which these figures are taken, you will find that under revenues I have credited interest on lands sold. I have not deducted from capital expenditure the capital value of the land. The Government of India does not allow us to reduce capital expenditure on works by capital value of the land itself. They only allow us to credit our revenue with interest from capital obtained from sale of land. But actually it simply means taking money out of one pocket and putting it in another and when I gave that figure I assumed that the capital obtained from the sale of land would be used, year by year, for reducing the capital to be borrowed.

       The honourable member from Poona suggested that the works should be carried out piecemeal. I think the honorable member from Sukkur has answered him fully, and I need not deal with it any further. The honourable member for the Indian Chamber of Commerce also wished to have explained the difference between the financial figures and returns shown at page 21 of the printed statement and those in “the Future of Sind”. The original returns and financial forecasts had to be re-casted when the secretary of State’s dispatch was received, ordering the basis of calculation to be increased from 5 per cent. to 6 per cent. interest for borrowed capital. The figures on page 21 are calculated with borrowed capital bearing 5 per cent. interest. Those in the “Future of Sind” are calculated for 6 per cent. interest.

I think that is all I have to say.

      Mr. S. K. BOLE: I move that the question be now put.

      The Honourable the PRESIDENT: The Subject is so important that I do no propose to accept the closure.

Mr. C. M. GANDHI (Surat City): Sir, it is with a certain amount of hesitation that I arise to address the House on this question which involves many complicated question and I would certainly follow the advice of the honourable member from Sukkur if I had been satisfied that the net return from this outlay would be 8 per cent. Unfortunately, some-how or other, the Government is trying to rush the scheme. We are told that the scheme has been before the public for twenty years. Really speaking, Sir, though the scheme have been before the officials for twenty years, the members of this House have not had more than twenty days to consider it. I received the papers relating to this scheme, Sir, about the 24th of May, and surely, Sir, Members of Government, hard-worked as they are, would realise the difficulties of no-official members also to find time to study all this mass of literature of this magnitude and importance within that short period. As a matter of fact, Sir, the scheme which has now been placed before us is a scheme which was developed by Mr. Mead so late as February 1923, because we are now asked to sanction the scheme as a protective scheme on the basis of calculations which Mr. Mead put before Government in February 1923. The idea of being able to finance the scheme by sale of land first rose in the minds of Government officers in October 1922, and when we compare the way in which Mr. Harrison tried to work out these figures and when we compare the figure which Mr. Mead placed before Government, we find that there is such a great divergence between them that this council is entitled to cry halt and ask Government to give them some time to consider the scheme. As a matter of fact, Sir, let us see how we have been treated in this matter. On 16th July 1921 the Secretary of State for India asked that on the financial question the Council should be fully consulted. Then the resolution was placed before this House in October 1921, and though my honourable friend the member from the Sukkur was the mover thereof and though I always appreciated the Keenness with which he fights the people’s cause, I regret to say that on that day also the resolution was sprung on this House as a surprise. More than 24 hours were not given to this Council and whether the scheme was going to be a success or not was hardly considered. It was merely a parenthetical statement in the resolution. The question on which the Council’s attention was concentrated at that time was as to whether it would be a success or not unless and until the Government of India was prepared to give us a substantial help of about ten crores. It was on that point that the Council’s attention was concentrated and the Council thought that if the scheme was going to cost twenty crores or even a few crores more than that, if the Government of India was going to give it a substantial help of ten crores, surely, it was a scheme which they would accept. At that time, Sir, the Honourable the Finance Member assured us—and there is his speech to which I refer—that unaided this Government would not be able to finance the scheme.

       The Honourable MR. H. S. LAWRENCE: would the honourable member tell me what page it is?

     MR. C. M. GANDHI: if you refer to page 602 of the proceedings of October 1921, you will see what the Honourable the Finance Member says:--

     “Clearly that burden would be exceedingly heavy for provincial resources unaided.”

(The Honourable MR. Lawrence here made an observation which was inaudible.)

Well, Sir, if you are going to quibble over words, you are quite at liberty to do so, but if words have any meaning, any value, coming as they do from Members of Government, then I say, Sir, the words of the Honourable the Finance Member and the General Member conveyed the same impression to us, and because we were assured that we had a very good case and that the Government of India would be induced to give us ten crores, we then unanimously resolved to approach the Government of India with that scheme, saying parenthetically that it was a good scheme. This was, Sir, what the Chief Secretary said on that occasion (page 607):--

    “Mr. President, I must commence my remarks by once more reinforcing the arguments of the honourable mover in which he showed clearly that the main objection to taking up the Sukkur Barrage project is purely financial and that on the financial position of this Government and the financial assistance which we may get from the Government of India depends the possibility of carrying out this beneficent scheme.”

        Sir, therefore, when this Council resolved in October 1921 to give their hearty support to the resolution of my honourable friend the member from Sukkur, this Council did not commit itself to any opinion as to the scheme itself. But how, Sir, were we treated? In July 1921 the Government of India asked this Government to consult the local Council. All the papers were before the Government. No papers were placed before this Council in order to enable this Council to judge what the main outlines of the scheme were. Therefore, I say, Sir, that we were given no occasion, no opportunity, of studying the scheme. Then, Sir, in 1913 when the Secretary of State rejected the project of 1912, it was rejected on the advice of an expert committee. I understand, Sir, that members of that committee are alive and would have been prepared to give their advice on this scheme also if the Secretary of state had been good enough to place that scheme before them. But he does not choose to do so and he gives his condition sanction on certain assumptions put in the telegram no.63 which the Deputy President was placed to read. It is therefore, Sir, incumbent upon Council to consider the scheme in its financial aspect and if we have any doubt—and I hope I shall the able to convince the Council that there are many questions on which the Council ought to give close attention—we out to delay our sanction. I really fail to understand what serious calamity is to fall upon this Presidency if the scheme is delayed. Are we to produce million in one year? I do not understand, Sir, the reason for all this hurry.

     At page 115 of Vol. I of this project after some general observation on the construction of the project the report says that the Chief Engineer should have complete discretion and full powers to order by cable direct supply from the makers in England, India or elsewhere, and any further plant or plants that may be considered necessary. If the object were this, to order out plant at once, then certainly Members of Government would be justified in opposing the modest proposal which my honourable friend, the member for Thana, has made. I understood him to suggest that there should be a standing committee of this House to advice when-ever questions may arise as regards recruitment of high officers in carrying out the scheme, or of purchase of materials or a question as to the modification or alteration in the scheme. I suppose he means that it should be a standing committee of the House as in the House of Commons or elsewhere to advice Government on a matter of this importance. If I am right here in understanding the proposal of my honourable friend the honourable member for Thana, then it has my hearty support.

     Then, Sir coming to the amendment of the Deputy President, I just want to draw the attention of this House to the fact as to how these financial forecasts have been made. In August 1919, the Honourable the Finance Minister who was then the Commissioner in Sind advised sanctioning this scheme on the ground that it was going to be one of the most remunerative irrigational schemes of Government. In October 1922 Mr. Harrison has a different tale to tell. He says essentially it is a protective work upon a sound basis so that it should be accepted, and the advises That a free grant of two crores and ten lakhx of rupeeout of the Famine Insurance Fund be mad to zemindars of Sind; for what; Sir? To Avert a great political danger (Hear,hear) or is it for the purpose of another political object? I really fail to understand. But is it right? Will this Council be justified in saying that it is right to make a free gift of two crores and ten lakhs to the zemindars of Sind out of the Famine Insurance Fund, is a question I will ask this Council to give its most and anxious attention to. Then, Sir, the success of the project depends upon the estimates of August which as the report of the Government of India and the Secretary of State says is based upon an increase or 20 or 30 per cent. on the pre-war rates?

      Now, Sir, the Deputy President has said correctly and we find it correct to our cost that the estimates of the Development Department have gone up to 90 per cent. The cost of the canal project in the Punjab has gone up by 33 per cent., and if the cost of this scheme also goes up say by 50 per cent. the position would be disastrous. And I ask you therefore, Sir, to consider what will be the position. The cost of construction now proposed is 18 crores 35 lakhs. If the increase is only 50 per cent. you will have to add 9 crores and 17 lakhs to the cost. Preliminary expenses are one crore and 97 lakhs, interest 357 lakhs, to which we will have add 153 lakhs more. The cost will go up to 35 crores and if that is the cost, are we going to have a successful project? Mr. Harrison in his statement A at page 5 says on the most optimistic calculation the total income would be 245. If 125 is from the sale of land, 120 from Famine Insurance Fund, and interest at 6 per cen. 35 lakhs, it would be 2 crores and 60 lakhs, and then whether the scheme is going to be a successful scheme is a matter which is very doubtful taking the figures of Mr. Harrison to be true. But I ask you, Sir, whether these figures are true. This is, Sir, what the Land Revenue Administration Report for 1920 says: That the occupancy rights in lands were sold at Rs.2-15-0 per acres. In 1920-21 they were sold at Rs.4-11-0 per acre and what the honourable member, Mr. Musto, the other of this book says is this: He says they would be sold at Rs.24 per acre. And yet we are told by Mr. Harrison that in the seventh year the income would be Rs.100 per acre because lands would then be irrigated and would be more valuable. But Mr. Mead has another tale to tell. He says that they will have revenue in the very second year. I ask you, Sir, to consider whether it is not a case in which the matter requires to be looked into. I do not for a moment say that the consideration which I place before this Council are absolutely correct. They may be right or may be wrong, but I submit, Sir, that this matter requires to be closely looked into.

     We are told by my honourable friend from Sukkur that there is not a man in this House who can look in to the figures supplied by the experts of the local Government. If that be a fact, then I would say that all Honourable Ministers and the Honourable Members in charge of this project ought to vacate their offices. They have got no expert knowledge at all in engineering. Is it suggested that they blindly accept any figures that are placed before them by the Government experts? When such estimates are placed before them by Government experts, the honourable members ought to be able to check them, to examine them, to scrutinise them and to a certain whether or not the figures are right and correct.

      Mr. A. A. MUSTO: On a point of order, Sir. The honourable member from Surat says that I stated in my pamphlet that the value of these lands would be Rs.24 per acre. I say nothing of the kind in my pamphlet. What I say there (page 47, “The Future of Sind”) is “in the last of these 20 years, namely, 1920-21, the area given out was 7.081 acres at an average price of Rs.24.3 per acre”. I do not say there that the price would be Rs.24.3 but what the price actually was at which that land was given out.

    Mr. C. M. GANDHI: On page 48 of the same pamphlet, Mr. Musto says “these lands will all be given an absolutely assured flow water-supply all the year round. As noted above, the average price on which lands were granted in 1920-21 was Rs.24.3 per acre”.

    Mr. A. A. Musto: That bears out what I have just now stated to the House that the figure of Rs.24.3 per acre represented the price in 1920-21.

    Mr. C. M. GANDHI: Be that as it may, we are told that the lands are so very valuable and yet these lands are being given to Sind zemindars at a rate of ten rupees or fifteen rupees per acre. Of course, if it is for a political reason……..

     Some Honourable Members: No, no.

      Mr. C. M. GANDHI: Of course, if it is for a political reason, I have nothing to say, but if there is any other reason and if it is the reason which the Government of India have given in their report to the Secretary of State, it is this that even when the lands are told to them at ten rupees per acre, their financial situation is such that unless lands are sold to them at ten rupees they will not be able to cultivate the land with efficiency. That is, there financial situation is such that they will not have the money to do it with and that being so, how can Government hope to get Rs.100 and Rs.200 as the price per acre for these lands? That is a point which we have to consider. Honourable member on the Government benches may give us assurances, but unless and until those assurances are supported by records and by professional statement, I think this Council is entitled to ask that a committee of this House be appointed for the purpose of seeing itself that the plans are right and that the conclusion arrived at are right and I think that the non-official members will be able to support this scheme only if what has been suggested by me above is carried into effect. With these words, I have very great pleasure in supporting both the amendments that are now before the House.

    Rao Bahadur G. K. CHITALE (Ahmednagar District): Sir, in placing various arguments before the House on both sides of the question, one important fact appears to have been forgotten. The resolution is that this Council should pass the Sukkur Barrage Scheme as sanctioned by the Secretary of State. That relates to the technical, engineering and other matters connected with the project which no body from the opposition has dared to criticize. So far therefore as the technical side of it is concerned, it must have a unanimous assent. That project has been looked into not only by the local officers but by the officers of the Government of India and by a committee which was called into existence by the Secretary of State. Its technical aspect therefore deserves our fullest possible consent. It will of course be a formal consent as for as these technical and complicated engineering matters are concerned.

     Now, the other recommendation of this resolution is that it recommends to the Governor in Council to commence the work as soon as possible. There is something in it to take objection to and it may not meet with our unanimous approval. I say so because I do feel that the Government appears to be ignoring the existence of a body called the Finance Committee of this House, a body elected by this House. I take it that the function of this Finance Committee is to advice this House on all financial matters that come up for decision in this House. If that is not the function of the Finance Committee, the members on that committee ought to vacate their places on that committee. My point of view is this, that there was a Finance Committee elected by this House and I think Government would have done better to have called a meeting of this Finance Committee and to have discussed the whole financial question of the scheme placing its cards on the table. It is, I know, very difficult to discuss certain technical matters in such haste and I believe therefore the legislature and the Government itself have thought it fit to elect the Finance Committee on which the Government is fully representing by seven members sitting on it. From that point of view therefore I regret the opposition I have to offer. Let me say to the credit of Government that unlike other occasions they have tried to illuminate a mass of various details in the technical literature which they have furnished us, but I am afraid that very few of us must have understood it in a proper manner. As regards the financial aspect of it, I would have certainly supported my honourable friend from Surat if I was convinced that this House was so important that it has no power in its hands to use in future years. I subscribe deliberately and seriously to the proposition that even if we consent to this resolution, the House reserves to itself the power every year of voting the money needed by the department concerned.

   Honourable Members: No, no. It is a reserved subject.

       Rao Bahadur G. K. CHITALE: I repeat that the Honourable the General Member will have to come to us every year for a specific sanction for a specific amount. It may be a reserved subject, yet I do believe that if the Council makes up its mind that things are going wrong and that the estimates on which the sanction of this House has been taken on the advice of Government experts are falsified, Government dare not certify this item even if it be under a reserved department. Our experience is this, that the Government places its estimates before the finance committee and also before this House and then if we do not do our part and if we do not look at it seriously, even without that expert knowledge which we may not possess, we shall be committing a mistake which will be our own and that case I shell readily subscribe to the proposition of honourable member from Surat. If I was convinced that this House, after consenting to this resolution, would have no power left what so ever even if the estimates went wrong, I would instantly support my honourable friend from Surat. But I do believe that great power does exist with this House and I would like the Honourable General Member who is (who is also lawyer of great repute) to say whether such power exists or not. The point of view is rather important, because the scheme is certainly gigantic. Though the House did not agree with my view on the question of borrowing at the last session, and through my proposition was no voted for, still I do believe that it is a very gigantic scheme, and that we are gambling with the provincial finances. The House will remember that the interest charges on the irrigation projects already constructed for under construction come to Rs.42 lakhs a year.

      The Honourable PRSIDENT: May I enquire how long the honourable member is likely to take?

     Rao Bahadur G. K. CHITALE: I will say at least a few minutes. The Honourable the PRESIDENT: I wish to a certain the feeling of the House, and that is why I have interrupted the honourable member. It is now 7 O’clock which is a usual time for adjoining. A demand a closure was made, and I refused to accept it, because I regard the subject as of such importance, at there should be no feeling that it has been rushed. It is therefore that I desire to know what the feeling of the House is. From the way the discussion has proceeded, I am inclined to think that the case has been fully shifted from all point of view and that ample opportunity have been provided to honourable member to form their views in regard to the original motion and the three amendments that are before them. If honourable members are agreeable, I should personally like the discussion to go on a little longer, and the vote taken tonight. I do not wish it to be said either that such an important question was rushed through, all that a substantial portion of the House was deprived of the opportunity of expressing their views upon it. I should therefore like to know what the House desires. Personally I think that after the honourable member from Ahmednagar has expressed his views, we might call upon the member of Government in charge to reply, and then proceed to what. The procedure about voting will be that each amendment will be put in the reverse order to which it has been moved as against the original proposition, and if any of the amendments is carried that will become the substantive proposition, and the other amendments will be put as against that substantive motion. Honourable members will have an opportunity of deciding by a majority which of the four propositions, that are before them, they wish to adopt. But I should like to know whether honourable member desire that we should proceed with the work of the Council a little longer and conclude to-day, or whether day desire that the question should be postponed till Monday. (Honourable Member: No; no). The best thing to ascertain the felling would be to find out how many more members still desire to speak, and if they will get up, I will be able to form some idea. (Some honourable members stood up). I find that there are six more members who wish to speak. I would ask these members whether, in view of the full discussion which has been taken place, they still desire to insist upon their right to address the Council. Personally, I think that the matter has been thoroughly discussed from all points of view. However if the Council likes, I will allow after the honourable member from Ahmednagar has concluded, some other member to speak for five minutes if he has any new point to make, and then try to conclude. Sunday intervenes, and most of the member who have spoken to me have suggested that they would like to go back to their places to-morrow. If it had been an ordinary matter, I would have applied the closure. In view, however, of the fact that the scheme is gigantic one had the vote from Council means the acceptance of the responsibility for spending Rs.18 crores, I do not wish to exercise my privilege and apply the closure. I would ask honourable members to consider whether the subject has not been thrashed out fully and to agree to sit a little longer and to finish of this evening. (Honourable Members: Yes, yes.) I think that is the general feeling.

    Rao Bahadur G. K. CHITALE: Sir, I was pointing out the gigantic nature of the scheme; I was pointing out that our present demand on irrigation projects is Rs.42 lakhs a year, by way of interest and we have committed the provincial revenues to an equal or even more expenditure every year. I was adverting to several amendments which are before the House. I shall take the liberty of asking the movers of the amendments and their supporter whether they would like to see that scheme is strangled, and whether they would like to see the neighbouring provinces which have already greater advantages of taking more water from the Indus steeling a march over us. That is a point which appeals to me, and for myself I am prepared to see that the scheme is technically allowed to pass. If, however, it turns out that the estimates are falsified, and that the expenditure of Rs.18 crores will be incurred irrespective of the conditions subject to which the Secretary of State has sanctioned the scheme then I take it that the scheme ought not to be considered as sound. I do believe that in sanctioning the scheme the Secretary of State himself has laid down certain conditions, and in asking that this scheme should be put before the Council he has been careful to say that the consent of the legislature should be obtained. He says: “I note that Government of Bombay adhere to view that construction estimates are adequate and that land sales may be confidently expected to yield 12 crores 60 lakhs of rupees spreading over 25 years allowing for certain concessionary grants to local zemindars. I understand that your Government accepts Bombay Government’s views on above matters.” Our consent is now asked for the execution of this project; and surely the Council will have a check over the expenses. I believe the Finance Committee or the Standing Committee, elected by this Council, will exercise control over the expenditure. Under these circumstances I give my whole-hearted support to the scheme.

Rao Bahadur R. R. KALE (Satara District) : Sir, I would not take up the time of the Council at this hour but for the remark made by the honourable member for Ahmednagar. The second part of the resolution stands thus:

        “………… and recommends to the Governor in Council that the work should be commenced as soon as possible.”

This recommendation is bound to be accepted as the proposition itself has come from Government. We are now asked to recommend back to Government. My point is that this is rather out of the ordinary way.

      My second position is that, having committed ourselves to this resolution, would it be proper for the Council subsequently to stultify itself by withholding consent to any grant that may be asked for? Supposing that the Council withholds its consent it is open to His Excellency the Governor to render the decision of the Council nugatory by resorting to certification. I can point out recent instances—the power of certification may not be used, but it may also be used. Once we subscribe to this proposition, we commit ourselves to the amount asked for. Besides, the sum is not mentioned in the resolution. The resolution merely asks for the approval of the scheme. Whether it is 18 crores or more it does not say; and we have no means of knowing what our commitments are. I hope Government will see its way to at least put down in the resolution the figure they have arrived at in their estimate if the proposition is to be carried and the amendments withdrawn.

       The Honourable Mr. H. S. LAWRENCE: Mr. President, the first point to which I wish to refer is the remark made by the honourable member for Surat that there was no hurry about the matter, and that it could be delayed for a month or two. The urgency arises from the action that has been taken in the Punjab. This is a consideration to which all the members from Sind are fully alive but which members resident here may perhaps not appreciate. The original intention was that the Sukkur barrage scheme should be begun at the same time as the Sutlej valley scheme. But the Sutlej valley scheme is already two years ahead of us and the Punjab are pushing on their other schemes with energy and vigor. If we delay the Sukkur barrage scheme any further, Sind will be deprived of all rabi water in the winter and of the opportunity of extending its cultivation. It is the energy and vigour with which the Punjab push on their schemes that has necessitated our coming to the Council with the present urgency. The honourable member for Surat also complained that the scheme was being rushed through. This matter has been discussed openly and publicly for a great number of years, and if the honourable member has not made himself acquainted with it the Government cannot be held responsible. The question took a most serious turn this last winter, when Government became aware of the operations of those very important financial interests in the Punjab. The same honourable member was very pessimistic regarding the prospect of our getting the anticipated amount from the sale of lands. It is well known in Sind, though not in the Presidency, that sales of land have been held up for many years in anticipation of the coming of the barrage and that large areas of land are now in urgent demand which can be cultivated with the existing sources of supply. Another honourable member took as a sample of our exaggerated estimates the estimated outturn of cotton as being a material which his experience enabled him to criticise. The honourable member based his remarks on the outturn of Gujarat and Khandesh where cotton is not irrigated. But in Sind cotton is universally irrigated. We have the report of the Deputy Director of Agriculture in Sind which shows that the outturn of cotton on agricultural farms under irrigation is from 10 to 13 maunds per acre. I think the honourable member will admit that 10 maunds of Kapas will supply the 250 lbs. of Line which he regarded with suspicion.

       Mr. LALJI NARANJI: Yes, that is right.

       The Honourable Mr. H. S. LAWRENCE: The figures in the financial forecast have also been subjected to criticism; but I think they are sufficiently clear for the examination of honourable members who wish to satisfy themselves about their correctness. It is obvious that since the Government of India refused to give us their assistance we had to reconsider the matter and see if we could, by altering the system of sale of lands, obtain the money that we require to finance the project. Criticism has also been expressed of the fact that at one time the scheme was described as being productive and is being subsequently described as protective. Sir, that is merely a play upon words. A scheme may be both protective and productive. When we learn that the water supply of Sind is being cut off by the operations in the Punjab, that fact in itself renders any operations necessary to preserve the water supply of Sind protective, and makes our scheme essentially protective against famine. If we further can show a return of over 6 per cent., then that protective scheme becomes productive.

     Some further criticism was expressed of the proposal to apply ten lakhs per annum of the Famine Grant to Sind. Sir, I do not know why Sind should be considered to have no claim on the famine protection grant to which a portion of her revenues contribute. Hitherto there has been no famine in Sind and therefore no reason to expend that grant in Sind. Now that Sind is threatened with famine, it is equally necessary to expend money from the grant to protect her against famine. I think, Sir, that that simple reason will appeal to the judgment of this House. I do not wish to detain the House longer and I shall close.

        The Honourable the PRESIDENT: I will now call upon the honurable mover to reply.

        The Honourable Sir CHIMANLAL SETALVAD: Mr. President, I must say I am very much gratified at the manner in which the debate on this resolution has proceeded. From every quarter the scheme has been welcomed as a very necessary scheme for the preservation of the present cultivation in Sind and for its further development. There has been no destructive criticism, as far as, I could see, from any quarter wishing to obstruct the scheme at all. Evert member, Sir, who has spoken has exhibited his great solicitude for the province of Sind, which I am sure the members from Sind will appreciate. All that they have done, and rightly done, is to impress on Government the doubts that they feel on various parts of the scheme, in order only to make the scheme more successful and sure of achieving the results which it is expected to achieve. And I may assure the Council that Government and their officers on their part take that criticism and those observations in the spirit in which they were offered. I may assure the Council that Government would pay their best attention to the points that have been made and do everything that lies in their power to see that any pitfalls are avoided and that any danger to the success of the scheme is avoided. The wishes of the Council as expressed by its members will as far as possible be given effect to.

        Mr. President, before I go into the criticisms of various members, which I find it will not be necessary for me to do in any detail at all, looking to the course the discussion has taken, I may first refer to what my honourable friend the member from the Ahmednagar said with regard to the constitutional and legal position of the Council with regard to the scheme. I will say at once, Sir, that the honourable member is perfectly right in the statement that he made that because the Council adopts this resolution it is not bound hand and foot for all time to the manner in which the scheme may be carried out. Year after year, the Member in charge of the department who wants to expend the necessary monies during that year on this project will have to come to this Council for its vote and get its approval to the expenditure. Those honourable members who have offered criticism with regard to the working of the Development Department forgot for the moment that year after year, during the last three year, I had to stand before this Council and beg of them to give me the grant of the money that I wanted to expend during the year, and it was only by their vote and by their sanction to the grant that I asked for. That I have been able to carry on the activities of that department. If this project is sanctioned, whenever any budget provision is presented to the Council in any particular year, the Council will be free to cut it down or to alter it, if their experience of the way in which the scheme has been carried out during the previous period justifies them in doing so. Therefore, Sir, this Council has and will have throughout the construction of this scheme complete hold over it. I may assure the Council that after they pass this resolution they will have power from time to time to control the working of the project.

      It is not necessary for me to deal with all the criticisms that have been offered by various members, because most of them have been answered by the various official members who have spoken on the subject. But I will, Sir, get rid of the anxiety of my honourable friend from Sukkur about his burning ground. I am sorry he is not present for the moment….

     The Honourable the PRESIDENT: He is.

     The Honourable Sir CHIMANLAL SETALVAD: I will set his mind at rest with regard to the cremation ground at Sukkur. The question, Sir, of the compulsory acquisition of what is called the Gosala and the cremation ground has been very carefully considered, and the honourable member knows that it was discussed in detail with him at Sukkur. So far as Government at present know, the Gosala will not be acquired at all. As regards the burning ghat, it will have no doubt to be shifted from its present site, but the allocation of a new and permanent site will receive the sympathetic consideration of Government, and if no suitable waste land can be found, Government will acquire a suitable site for the purpose, and in doing that they will take into account the wishes of the Hindu community of that place and will do everything to meet their wishes in that matter.

      The honourable nominated member from Bombay referred to a certain passage in the Secretary of State’s cable about private agency and he wanted to be informed what it referred to. I would tell him and the Council at once that the fact was this. The Secretary of State suggested and that he had had suggestions made to him by private agency for that purpose. Both this Government and the Government of India expressed their strong objection to that suggestion, and the Secretary of State has accepted the view of this Government and the scheme will be carried out departmentally and not by private agency at all. The suggestion of the Secretary of State was only with regard to the construction of the barrage and not with regard to the disposal of land. He thought it might be more convenient to give the construction work to private agency because in that event Government might not have to find the money as the private agency would finance the scheme. But I am sure the Council will agree that the work of constructing the barrage can be done much more cheaply if carried out by Government departmentally than by private agency and that is the course decided upon.

     I have already said, Sir, it is not necessary for me to reply to every member that has spoken in this debate. So far as I can see, everybody is agreed as to the desirability of this scheme and the beneficent results which are likely to flow from it. But there are various vague suspicions and apprehensions with regard to one or two matters which I can, Sir, at once clear up and set the minds of members at rest about them. It has been repeatedly said—it has been said before with regard to the Development Department also—that the man-power and the materials of India should be used in the execution of these projects. The honourable member from Thana appeared to me to again repeat the charge with regard to the Development Department that that was not done. I am afraid he has a short memory, and has forgotten what I said during the last budget discussion in Bombay on this point. I then pointed out how small the expenditure outside this country was compared with the total expenditure, and that a large proportion of current expenditure was being spent on Indian establishment. I then pointed out that out of a total expenditure already incurred on the Development Department of 547 lakhs, only 118 lakhs had been expended out of the country, including a dredger which cost nearly a crore of rupees and which cannot possibly be got in this country. I had also pointed out that when the whole development scheme was carried out costing about 29 crores as estimated, the local expenditure out of the country would be only 1 crore and 50 lakhs out of it. I further pointed out that out of the total monthly cost on the establishment which works out to about Rs.1, 50,000 a month, more than two-third goes in paying the Indian establishment, and this does not include the manual labour at all. The expenditure on manual labour is quite over and above that. Therefore, Sir, when you know the experience of the expenditure on the Development Department, the Council need have no apprehension that in connection with the Sukkur barrage Indian man-power and Indian materials will be ignored. On the contrary, Sir, if honourable members will refer to page 53 of Mr. Musto’s Report, Volume I, this is what is said:

       “There will be required an enormous quantity of the sheet piling, both as part of the permanent structures, and for use during construction. The simplest and strongest form of piling is the ‘Universal’ piling which consists of ordinary steel I beams and separate steel locking sections. Messrs. Tata and Company have entered into an arrangement for rolling these sections in India, provided messrs. Tata are able to meet the demand. This style of piling has the great advantage that salvage value is high, as the ordinary I beams can be used for buildings, structural works, etc., whereas special piles such as lackawana, etc., are of little use for ordinary purposes.”

       Then he goes on to say:

       “There will also be a very large amount of structural steel work in the gates and counter-weights. The material for these might either come from Messrs. Tata or from England, according as reds and supplies are more favourable at one or the other. They could be constructed either at the Public Works Department workshops at Amritsar, or it might be worth will to erect shops at Sukkur and build the whole of this work there. Possibly the north-western railway could be approached to take over the shops for boiler and other construction afterwards. This is merely a suggestion.”

       That shows that is has been contemplated has been the idea that, as far as possible, serious attempts will be made to get all the material in India.

       Then, Sir, various vague apprehensions were expressed about foreign syndicates coming on the scene and exploiting the vast tracts of land made available by the barrage project is Sind. I may at once tell the Council, Sir, that there has been not application of that character before Government from any syndicate at all, and there is not intention on the part of Government to enter into any such arrangements. And, Sir, I am prepared to assure the Council that if the question ever arises in the future whether any syndicate or company should be allowed to purchase land from the new canals Government will favour the condition that such syndicate or company should be largely Indian in capital and control, and will give this House and opportunity of discussing the question before it is decided (Hear, hear). I think, Sir, at this assurance ought to dispose of any misapprehensions that may be lingering in the minds of honourable members. Government purpose to deal fairly and squarely with this Council and with the public at large and are asking for sanction for this scheme only in the best interests of this residency.

       Mr. President, as has been already observed by various members, delay is fatal. The Punjab is forging ahead and will cut off our supplies of water from the Indus as fast as they possibly can and it is very vital for this province that it should lose no time in carrying out this project. Therefore, Sir, I appeal to the honourable members who have moved amendments that in view of the very friendly manner, in which this scheme has been received and the open manner, I venture to say, in which Government have striven their best to meet the wishes of this Council, they should see their way to withdraw them (Hear, hear), so that this resolution may be carried by the unanimous vote of this Council.

      Mr. President, Sind is waiting expectant on the verdict of this House, and I beseech the House to think well and to think wisely before they vote. I am confident, Sir, that the verdict of this house will be one which will be inscribed in letters of gold for future generations to admire the wisdom, the foresight and the coverage in doing a big thing for Sind and for this Presidency.

      Dewan Bahadur K. R. GODBOLE: I wish to withdraw my amendment. Amendment by leave withdrawn.

      Mr. G. B. TRIVEDI: Sir, in view, of the assurance given by the Honourable the General Member I also withdraw my amendments.

    Amendment by leave withdrawn.

       The amendment of Rao Saheb Harilal D. Desai was put and lost.

The original resolution by the honourable sir Chimanlal Setalvad was then put to the vote and carried.