Contributions of the British to irrigation engineering in upper India in the nineteenth century

Irrigation has always been important in India because of the problems caused by its rainfall pattern. Although the average precipitation is 50 in. per annum, 90% of this falls between June and September. The rainfall is very unevenly distributed over the country and the behaviour of the monsoon as between one year and another is unreliable.1 Irrigation is thus essential for much of India, and there are signs that it was practiced in different forms from early times, depending on the terrain.2