Geography Quiz: Irrigation and Major Canals of India

Begun in 1958 as the Rajasthan Canal and renamed in 1984, it is the longest canal in India; its feeder and main canal together run for about six hundred and fifty kilometres and carry water from the Punjab rivers into the Thar desert of western Rajasthan.

The Harike barrage stands in Punjab at the point where the Beas joins the Sutlej, and the Indira Gandhi Canal begins there as the Rajasthan Feeder before continuing as the main canal into Rajasthan.

The Upper Ganga Canal was opened in 1854 and is taken from the Ganga at Haridwar, from where it runs down the Ganga–Yamuna Doab and irrigates the districts of western Uttar Pradesh; the engineer associated with its construction is Proby Cautley.

The Grand Anicut, known in Tamil as Kallanai, was thrown across the Cauvery by the Chola king Karikala in about the second century to spread the river's water over the delta, and it still serves the canals of the Cauvery delta in Tamil Nadu.

The Buckingham Canal is a salt water navigation canal dug in the nineteenth century along the eastern coast, linking the lagoons and backwaters between Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh and Chennai in Tamil Nadu, and it was used to carry goods and to relieve famine by moving grain.

Groundwater drawn through wells and tube wells irrigates the largest part of the net irrigated area of India, and its share has risen steadily since the Green Revolution because a tube well gives water on demand, close to the field and without waiting for a canal turn.

Tank irrigation is characteristic of the peninsula, especially Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, for three reasons: the hard crystalline rock of the plateau makes the digging of wells difficult and holds little groundwater, the rivers of the peninsula are seasonal and cannot feed perennial canals, and the uneven…

In drip irrigation water is carried through pipes and released slowly, drop by drop, at the root zone of each plant through emitters, so losses to evaporation, runoff and deep percolation are the lowest of all methods and fertiliser can be delivered with the water.

The scheme was launched in 2015 to bring the scattered irrigation programmes under one roof, and its components include Har Khet Ko Pani, which aims to extend assured irrigation to every field, Per Drop More Crop, which promotes drip and sprinkler systems, the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme for incomplete major…

The Agra Canal leaves the right bank of the Yamuna at the Okhla barrage to the south of Delhi and carries water to the districts of Agra and Mathura in Uttar Pradesh, with branches reaching parts of Haryana and Rajasthan.

The Sirhind Canal is taken from the Sutlej at Ropar, now Rupnagar, and is one of the oldest canal systems of Punjab, irrigating a large tract of the Malwa region and parts of Haryana.