By the 1920s and 1930s attempts were made to diversify the use of India's water resources, in the direction of hydro-electric power; but the interests of irrigation and the lack of demand for rural electrification militated against such developments for the most part in the agricultural provinces. To estimate the value of irrigation, the Famine Commission was required to go beyond the statements of its financial results and enquire into its general effect, no less, on the character of cultivation in the several irrigation provinces. For northern India, submissions from the governments of Punjab and the North Western Provinces were in agreement that the introduction of canal irrigation had led universally to an increase in cultivation. Unlike the great Punjab canals, the purpose of the Sarda canal system was not to reclaim a wilderness but to replace an existing small-scale pattern of irrigation by a large-scale system in the interest of economy and efficiency.