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Quiz yourself on Hot DesertsGet your flashcardsBuild my revision planTrack my progress📋 The Indira Gandhi Canal: Benefits and Costs
The Indira Gandhi Canal is the most transformative single piece of infrastructure in the Thar Desert. But it illustrates the central tension of desert development: short-term economic opportunity versus long-term environmental and social costs.
| Benefits | Costs |
|---|---|
| Irrigates approximately 2 million hectares of previously arid land | Waterlogging: over-irrigation has raised the water table in irrigated zones, bringing salt to the surface through capillary action — soil salinisation renders land infertile |
| Enabled production of wheat, cotton, mustard and groundnuts — improved food security | Reduced water flows downstream in Pakistan's Punjab province → conflict over water rights between India and Pakistan (Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 governs allocation but remains contested) |
| Allowed permanent settlement of nomadic communities → schools, healthcare facilities followed | Loss of traditional nomadic lifestyles and pastoral knowledge; communities became dependent on canal water rather than drought-resistant practices |
| Reduced famine risk in Rajasthan — last major famine in 1987 | Groundwater depletion in areas surrounding the canal corridor as farmers supplement canal water with borehole extraction |
| Created employment in construction, maintenance and associated agriculture | Climate change threatens to reduce Himalayan snowmelt that feeds the Beas and Sutlej rivers — the long-term water source for the canal is not guaranteed |
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