Rai Bahadur Sir Ganga Ram (born Ganga Ram Agarwal; 13 April 1851 – 10 July 1927) was an Indian civil engineer and architect. His extensive contributions to the urban fabric of Lahore, then in colonial India and now in modern Pakistan, caused Khaled Ahmed to describe him as "the father of modern Lahore". Early life Ganga Ram Agarwal was born on 13 April 1851 in Mangtanwala, a village in Sheikhupura District in the Punjab Province of British India (now in the Nankana Sahib District of Punjab, Pakistan) into a Punjabi Hindu Baniya family of the Agarwal community. His father, Doulat Ram Agarwal, was a junior subinspector at a police station in Mangtanwala. Later, he shifted to Amritsar and became a copy-writer of the court. Here, Ganga Ram passed his matriculation examination from the Government High School and joined the Government College, Lahore in 1869. In 1871, he obtained a scholarship to the Thomason Civil Engineering College at Roorkee. He passed the final lower subordinate examination with the gold medal in 1873. He was appointed assistant engineer and called to Delhi to help in the building of the Imperial Assemblage. Career Engineer In 1873, after a brief Service in Punjab P.W.D devoted himself to practical farming. He obtained, on lease from the government, 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. This was the biggest private enterprise of the kind, unknown and unthought-of in the country before. Sir Ganga Ram earned millions most of which he gave to charity. In the words of Sir Malcolm Hailey, the Governor of Punjab, "he won like a hero and gave like a Saint". He was a great engineer and a great philanthropist. 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. He finished the work at the Darbar managing its manifold problems and challenges. He retired prematurely from service in 1903. He received the title of Rai Bahadur in 1903, and was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) on 26 June 1903 for his services at the Delhi Durbar. On 12 December 1911, in