The initial conception of a barrage across the river Indus at
Sukkur, now in
Pakistan, is credited to Lt. Colonel Walter Scott, superintendent of the Canal and Forest Department in 1846. Later schemes, by Lieutenant (later General) J.G Fife in 1855, and by Dr T. Summers in 1906 and 1910, followed. However, a complete scheme was not produced until the project designed by Arnold Musto, a British national serving as an executive engineer with the Indian Service of Engineers. His plans were submitted to the Government of
Bombay, and in April 1923 the
Secretary of State for India sanctioned the project at an estimated cost of Rs 200 million. Charlton Harrison was appointed chief engineer, effectively chief executive, of the project, in recognition of his prior executive experience and demonstrated leadership and management skills. Work started in January 1925 and was completed by 31 December 1931. A unanimous resolution of the District Local Board was passed that the barrage be named after
Sir George Lloyd, later Lord Lloyd, the Governor of Bombay in 1923, who had taken an active interest in the scheme. This was the world's largest civil engineering project during the first 50 years of the 20th century. It is still the largest irrigation system in the world. The barrage enables water to flow through what was originally a network of canals 6,166 miles (9,923 km) long, with more than 5 million acres (20,000 km2) of irrigated land. The retaining wall has 66 spans, each 60 feet (18 m) wide. Each span has a gate weighing 50 tons. Reports on the extent of this project tend to vary. One report states that "It is the backbone of the economy of the entire country (of Pakistan), providing, through its network of canals, irrigation to an area of 7.63 million acres, approximately 25 per cent of the total canal-irrigated area." Another report states: "The 5,001 feet (1,524 m) long barrage is made of yellow stone and steel and can water nearly 10 million acres (40,000 km2) of farmland through its seven large canals. Some of the canals are larger than the Suez Canal." A contemporary U.S. report in 1932 stated that "Besides two dams which are, respectively, the largest and the second highest in the world, the project includes a network of canals and spillways 6,000 miles long. On it 77,000 men were employed for nine years. It cost $75,000,000 and will irrigate a rainless desert area as big as Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Delaware together. Statisticians figured that the masonry in the Lloyd dam would build a wall six feet high, 15 inches thick and 520 miles long. It should provide farm work for an additional 2,500,000 people." However, the rest of this report of the inaugural ceremony, which first appeared in
Time magazine, is mistaken in its details concerning the personalities involved. The report appeared on 25 January 1932, and was then re-printed, virtually verbatim, in the
San Antonio Express, San Antonio, Texas, on Sunday, 28 February 1932; and in
The Nashua Reporter, Nashua, Iowa, on Wednesday, 28 September 1932. It stated: "Immediately after the ceremony
Lord Willingdon announced that a knighthood had been awarded to the British designer of the project: Charlton Scott Cholmeley Harrison. Undoubtedly the Lloyd Barrage will do more for the people of northwestern India than anything St.
Gandhi has been able to think of, but all its waters could not quench Nationalist pride. India seethed with the news that Arnold Musto, native engineer in charge of construction who spent seven hot summers by the dam site, designed much special machinery, was not rewarded at all." This assertion is a remarkable travesty of the truth. The facts are that
Arnold Musto, who was also knighted, was not a "native engineer" in any sense.
Musto is an Italian and English surname; and he was the son of J. J. Musto of London. Arnold Musto was born in 1883, and married Margaret McCausland of
Magherafelt,
County Londonderry,
Northern Ireland, in 1922. After training in England he entered the Public Works Department in Bombay in 1907 as an assistant engineer. He then served in
Mesopotamia, 1916–18, and as controller of munitions in
Karachi January–May 1918.
The Future of Sind: Sukkur Barrage Scheme, by Arnold Musto, was published by Times Press in 1923. Musto, not Harrison, was the "designer" of the project; whereas Harrison was in overall administrative charge, and had also "spent seven hot summers by the dam site". In
The Unsung (1945),
Maud Diver wrote of their joint achievement as follows: "In Mr Arnold Musto the Bombay PWD produced a man in every way fitted for so mighty a task. To him was given the double privilege of designing and building that mile-long dam, under the direction of Sir Charlton Harrison, chief engineer of the whole project. Both men were deservedly knighted for their twofold achievement; and Harrison, in particular, was blest by his assistants for his care and thought in protecting them, as far as might be, from the terrible climate of Sukkur, where the mercury often touched 120 degrees for months on end. Harrison had the wisdom and humanity to insist on proper housing of his engineers, the common comforts of electric fans and light before he would ask them to begin work; and they, in return, gave of their utmost without flagging ... and in record time they completed their seven canals." ==Later life and death==