1. Ganga Ram Agarwal was born on 13 April 1851 in Mangtanwala, a village in Sheikhupura District in the Punjab Province of British India into a Punjabi Hindu family.
17 Facts About Ganga Ram
1. 2.
Ganga Ram's father, Doulat Ram, was a junior subinspector at a police station in Mangtanwala.
3.
Ganga Ram passed the final lower subordinate examination with the gold medal in 1873.
4.
Ganga Ram was appointed assistant engineer and called to Delhi to help in the building of the Imperial Assemblage.
5.
Ganga Ram obtained, on lease from the government, 50,000 acres of barren, unirrigated land in Montgomery District, and within three years converted that vast desert into smiling fields, irrigated by water lifted by a hydroelectric plant and running through a thousand miles of irrigation channels, all constructed at his own cost.
6.
Sir Ganga Ram earned millions most of which he gave to charity.
7.
In 1900, Ganga Ram was selected by Lord Curzon to act as superintendent of works in the Imperial Durbar to be held in connection with the accession of King Edward VII.
8.
Ganga Ram finished the work at the Darbar managing its manifold problems and challenges.
9.
Ganga Ram received the title of Rai Bahadur in 1903, and was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire on 26 June 1903 for his services at the Delhi Durbar.
10.
Ganga Ram constructed Model Town and Gulberg town, once the best localities of Lahore, the powerhouse at Renala Khurd as well as the railway track between Pathankot and Amritsar.
11.
Ganga Ram became Superintending Engineer in Patiala State for the capital's reconstruction project after his retirement.
12.
In Tehsil Jaranwala of district Lyallpur, Ganga Ram built a unique travelling facility, Ghoda Train.
13.
Ganga Ram took more than 20,000 acres of land on lease from the Government near Renala and cultivated it by completely irrigating the barren land with hydro-electric pumping.
14.
Ganga Ram purchased thousands acres of barren land in Lyallpur on lease and by using engineering skills and modern irrigation methods, turned the arid lands into fertile fields.
15.
Ganga Ram's body was cremated and his ashes were brought back to India.
16.
Ganga Ram's great-grandson Dr Ashwin Ram is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
17.
Ganga Ram's great-granddaughter, Shreela Flather, Baroness Flather, was a teacher and politician.