Maharaja Sumer Singh died in 1918 and was succeeded by his younger brother, Umaid Singh. Jaswant Singh II's mission was now completed by him, and in grand style.
Whatever Umaid Singh built, from the huge Jawai Bandh Dam in southern Marwar, which fifty years later, is still one of Jodhpur's main sources of drinking water, to landing strips all over the state for emergency relief, and the modern Windham (now Mahatma Gandhi) Hospital which remains Jodhpur's biggest, was state-of-the-art and of the finest quality. And he built much. A prolific builder who changed the face of Marwar, he is remembered best however, quite unjustly but not surprisingly, for his magnificent palace, rivalling Mehrangarh Fort in the east as Jodhpur's presiding deity. Built as a part of a comprehensive Famine Relief-Employment Generation programme launched by Umaid Singh in 1925 the Umaid Bhawan Palace remains the grandest monument to Keynesian economics.
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