Land deriving benefit from percolation liable to water-rate

If it appears to a Canal-Officer duly empowered by the Government in this behalf to enforce the provisions of this section that any cultivated land within two hundered metres of any canal receives, by percolation or leakage from such canal, an advantage equivalent to that which would be given by a direct supply of canal water for irrigation, or that any cultivated land, wherever situated, derives by a surface flow, or by means of a well sunk within two hundred metres of any canal after the admission of water into such canal, a supply of water which has percolated or leaked from such canal, he may charge on such land a water-rate not exceeding that which would ordinarily have been charged for a similar direct supply to land similarly cultivated. Explanation.— For the purpose of this Act, land charged under this section shall be deemed to be land irrigated from a canal. Sanction will be granted for the use of water free of charge for growing food and fodder crops including onions.