WATER POWER IN INDIA

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1067, 3 September 1930, Page 14

WATER POWER IN INDIA

SCHEME TO COST £3 500,000 GOVERNMENT ENTERPRISE The important scheme of the Punjab Government for the development of hydro-electric power in the Himalayas has recently been re-examined by a special committee, appointed at the request of the Punjab Legislative Council and, in spite of the hostile criticism to which it had been submitted in certain quarters, has been unanimously endorsed and is to be continued to its completion. Electricity has hitherto been supplied to the towns and factories of North-west India from small plants, municipal or private, which produce their current at a cost varying from id to 2d a unit. The development of industry has been hampered by this high figure and the Industrial Commission recommended the undertaking of power prodqction by the agency of the Government on a much larger scale. A thorough examination of the sites available in the nearer Himalayan ranges led to the selection of a point on the Uhl River, a confluent of the Beas in Mandi State, 100 miles above railhead in the north of the Punjab. After consultation with Dr. H. E. Gruner, of Basle, Switzerland, an estimate of £3,500,000 was drawn up, and construction was begun in April, 192(1, under the supervision of Colonel Battye, R.E., chief hydro-electric engineer to the Government. According to the project, the water of the Uhl will be drawn off at a barrage at an elevation of 6,000 feet, passed through a tunnel 9ft 3in in diameter and two and a-quarter miles long. It will fall 2,000 feet to a powerhouse at an elevation of 4,000 feet, whence current will be distributed by trunk lines to a network covering the Punjab, Delhi and part of the United Provinces.

The production cost, according to the first estimate, was to be Id a unit on the high-tension line and slightly over |d as delivered to the local plants. These figures must now, on the revised estimate, be raised to approximately 5-16 d and 5-Bd. The cheapness of these rates has been illustrated by comparison with the Shannon scheme in the Irish Free State, for which the cost of production is 9-10ths of a penny a unit.