Canal Colonies

Canals were established in Western regions of Punjab for irrigation of vast chunks of semi-arid lands and were made of fertile soils for the exportation of wheat and rice. Many peasants came to settle around the newly fertile lands and the colony of the area around the canal came to be known. After the process of irrigation by modern canals, semi-waste areas of Punjab started to be known as canal colonies, for growing wheat and cotton.

The canal colonies were a network of irrigation canals that were developed in British India for turning semi-desert waste into fertile lands for agriculture. Canal colonies were settled by peasants of other colonies as well.

The Punjab Canal Colonies or Canal Colonies are the parts of western Punjab that were brought under cultivation by the construction of canals during the British Raj. It is a set of 9 canal colonies. They were built between 1885 and 1940 by the British Government. They were constructed between the valleys east of Beas and Sutlej and west of Jhelum rivers( the above-mentioned rivers are tributaries to the Indus River). With the construction of these canals, the land under agriculture increased rapidly. With the huge increase in agricultural land, people started migrating to these places which lead to the start of the agricultural revolution. The traditionally grown crops were replaced with commercialized products like sugar, wheat, cotton, etc. The main reason to build these canal colonies was to convert the semi-desert wasteland into fertile agricultural land to grow commercially viable crops like wheat, cotton, and sugar to export.