Punjab Canal Colonies

The Punjab Canal Colonies is the name given to parts of western Punjab which were brought under cultivation through the construction of canals and agricultural colonisation during the British Raj. The Punjab underwent an agricultural revolution, with arid subsistence production getting replaced by commerce-oriented production of huge amounts of wheat, cotton and sugar. Between 1885 and 1940, nine canal colonies were created in the inter-fluvial tracts west of the Beas and Sutlej and east of the Jhelum rivers. In total, over one million Punjabis settled in the new colonies, relieving demographic pressures in central Punjab. Many of these colonies were called Chak and given a number. Earlier their equivalent subdivisions use to be the Subah or Taraf, Pargana or Mahal, Mauza or Pir, which were replaced by the administrative divisions of India after the Indian independence in 1947, though the Chak as name of villages still continues in the former Punjab Canal Colonies.