THE ELECTRICAL SCHEME
In such a country as Kashmir, with a great river flowing through it,
and with numerous mountain torrents and subsidiary streams running
into that river, there is obviously an immense amount of water-power
at hand. The difficulty is to make it available for practical
purposes. But this difficulty is now being overcome by converting the
water-power into electric power, which can then be transmitted to
considerable distances and applied in a variety of ways. The idea of
thus converting this vast amount of water-power in Kashmir into
electric power had of recent years, since the development of
electrical appliances, naturally occurred to many; but it did not take
definite shape till the Maharaja engaged the services of Major Alain
de Lotbiniere, R.E., to carry out a scheme of harnessing the waters
of the Jhelum River which that officer had formulated, and which has
just been completed.
Major de Lotbiniere, a Canadian by birth, and endowed with a full
measure of the energy, resource and hopefulness of his countrymen, had
already executed a very successful scheme by which the water-power in
the Cauvery Falls in Madras had been converted into electric energy,
and transmitted to a distance of a hundred miles, to supply the Kolar
gold-fields in Mysore with motive power, at a cost 50 per cent lower
than that which they were paying for steam-power. He had also
inspected many electrical projects on the Continent and in Canada and
America. He therefore came to the work in Kashmir in September 1904
fully primed with the knowledge of all the latest developments of
electrical science, and at once conceived the idea of harnessing, not
any of the minor rivers of Kashmir, but the river Jhelum itself, and
selected a spot a few miles above Rampur where he might entrap some of
the water, lead it along the mountain-side at practically a uniform
level, till he could drop it through pipes on to turbines--very much
in the same manner as a mill-stream is led along and then dropped on
to a water-wheel--and so by setting in motion various machines
generate electrical energy.
The theory of the electric installation is then very simple. The
valley falls rapidly. At the part selected it falls about 400 feet in
6-1/2 miles. Some of the water is taken out and kept at about the same
level so that at the end of the 6-1/2 miles it has a fall of 401 feet.
Consequently when it is dropped those 400 feet it falls with immense
force and velocity. By most ingenious machinery this force is turned
into electrical energy, and then transmitted by wires to wherever
wanted--it is hoped even to the plains of the Punjab, to Rawal Pindi
at least.
Meanwhile the water, after fulfilling its mission, returns into the
river, and might, if need be, be taken out again, led along the
mountain-side, and a few miles lower down dropped once more on to
another electrical installation, and generate still more electrical
energy. The same lot of water might, in fact, go on performing the
same duty time after time till the plains of India were reached. Then
when it got on to the level, and there was no further fall, it would
be impossible to utilise it for generating electrical energy. But it
would promptly be seized for another equally important purpose. For it
would be caught in the great new canal which is being constructed at
the point where the Jhelum River emerges from its mountain barriers
and enters the plain; and from that point it would be led over some
hundreds of miles to irrigate rich, but as yet uncultivated lands,
only needing the touch of life-giving water to burst forth into
luxuriant vegetation and attract great populations to them.
The latent capacity for good of these waters of the Jhelum, now
tossing heedlessly about as they rush along beside the road into
Kashmir, is then for practical purposes almost unlimited. Even the
present installation only takes out a small proportion, and that
portion is utilised only once. In the driest season the Jhelum River
runs with a volume of about 5000 cubic feet per second--what are known
for short as "cusecs." But of this amount only 500 cusecs are taken,
and these 500 cusecs are utilised only once, and not several times, as
they might well be in their fall between the valley of Kashmir and the
plains of India.
With these 500 cusecs electrical energy to the extent of 20,000
horse-power will be generated; but Major de Lotbiniere thinks that it
would be possible to economically develop an aggregate of at least
250,000 horse-power of electrical energy from the Jhelum River. It is
not possible to take out water and conduct it along the mountain-side
at any point. It is indeed a matter of some difficulty to choose a
site where safe headworks can be constructed to entrap the water of
the river, where the water can be taken along the hill-side, and where
a forebay or tank can be built from which to lead off the pipes to the
generating station below. In many parts the river runs between
precipitous banks so that it is impossible to get it out. In others,
even when it had been got out, the hill-sides would be found so loose
and unsafe it would be impracticable to take a water-course along
them. Still, in spite of the many difficulties in the way of making
practical use of the water-power in the Jhelum River, Major de
Lotbiniere still thinks that, as above mentioned, electrical energy to
the extent of a quarter of a million horse-power could be economically
developed.
Water for the present project has been taken out a couple of miles
above Rampur at a most charming spot, where the river comes foaming
down over innumerable boulders, and the banks are overshadowed by the
same graceful deodar trees which clothe the mountain-sides. Here very
strong and solid masonry headworks and regulating sluices have been
built under the lee of some friendly boulders; and elaborate
precautions have been taken to protect these headworks from the impact
of the thousands of logs which are annually floated down the river by
the Forest Department to be caught and sold in the plains below.
From these headworks what is called a flume has been constructed in
which the water will run along the mountain-side to the forebay or
tank immediately above the generating station. This flume, answering
to the channel which conducts the water to a flour-mill, is to the eye
absolutely level, but it has in reality the very small drop of 1.05
feet in 1000 feet--just sufficient to make the water run easily along
it. Its length is about 6-1/2 miles; and the main difficulty in the
whole project was found in constructing it. A road or even a railway
when it comes to an obstacle can very likely, by a change in the
gradient, rise over it or under it. But this flume had to go straight
at any obstacle in its way, for it obviously could not rise, and if it
were lowered it could not rise again, and so much horse-power would
have been lost at the far end. The flume, in fact, once it was started
off had to take things as it found them and make the best of them. The
first obstacle was a great spur of boulder conglomerate. This had to
be cut down into to a depth of forty feet. An arched masonry passage
had then to be made, and the whole covered over again. Five torrents
were negotiated by passing them clean over the flume. Over six other
torrents the flume--here made of wood--had to be carried on strong
iron bridges. And six tunnels were made through projecting rocky
spurs. Only one-third of the 6-1/2 miles' length of flume could be built
of masonry, and the remainder had necessarily to be built of timber.
This portion had an internal section of 8-1/3 feet by 8-1/2 feet, and
was constructed of tongued and grooved, machine-planed, deodar planking
2-3/4 inches thick, supported on cross frames 3-1/2 feet apart.
The chief danger to guard against in constructing this flume for
carrying the water to the generating station was the risk of the
hill-sides either bodily slipping downward, as they are very apt to do
in heavy rain, or falling in heavy masses on to the wooden flume and
breaking through it, and thus completely breaking off the source of
power, and bringing all machinery to a standstill. These risks cannot
be entirely counteracted. In heavy rain a portion of the wooden flume
may be carried away or broken. An alternative supply of water on
occasions of exceptional rain has therefore been tapped close up to
the generating station, where a strong dam has been thrown across the
bed of a mountain torrent, and its waters impounded to lead through a
tunnel in a rocky spur almost immediately on to the forebay. In
ordinary weather there is little water in this torrent, but in heavy
rain, when the flume is most likely to be damaged, it has ample water.
And although there is this alternative supply, great precautions have,
nevertheless, been taken to ensure the flume against damage, and where
slips are to be expected immensely solid timber shoots have been
erected over it for rocks or snow and mud floods to shoot over.
On emerging from the flume the water enters the brick-lined tank or
reservoir called the forebay, where it settles for a moment before
descending the great iron pipe which conducts it on to the machinery
in the power-house below. In this forebay there are, of course, sluice
gates to regulate the flow, and shut it off altogether at one or all
the pipes. And there is also a spill channel for the water to flow
away to waste when it is not wanted.
Then four hundred feet below we come to the power-house, with all the
most modern electrical plant transported from America, and much of it
from the farthest western coast of America, across the Atlantic and
the Indian Oceans, right across India, and then for 150 miles by road
over a range 6000 feet high. The water-power made available by the
flume is capable of generating 20,000 horse-power; but as that amount
of power is not at present required, electrical machinery to develop
not more than 5000 h.-p. has as yet been put in, though space and all
arrangements have been provided in the power-house for machinery to
develop 15,000 h.-p. more whenever that is required. The machinery is
by the General Electric Co. of New York, and the generators supplied
are of the three-phase 25-cycle type. The water-wheels upon which the
water from the forebay, led down the pipes and contracted through a
nozzle, impinges with such tremendous velocity that a hatchet could
not cut the spout, are made of specially toughened steel, and are so
cunningly designed that the utmost effect is obtained from the fall of
the water, and that immediately the water has done its work it is
allowed to pass away at once through a waste channel back again into
the river without further impeding the machinery. These wheels were
supplied by Abner Doble of San Francisco. They are sent revolving with
immense rapidity--five hundred revolutions per minute, or eight every
second--and they cause to revolve the electrical generators which are
placed on the same axis, and thereby electric energy is generated. By
a series of very ingenious machines this electric energy is regulated
and conducted to the transmission wires which are at present carried
through Baramula to Srinagar, and which will transmit the power at the
extremely high voltage of 60,000 volts from the generating station to
the spot where the power is required.
The carrying out of such an undertaking in a remote mountainous
country, where no railway has yet penetrated and where no great
industrial enterprises have yet been established, required no small
amount of organising capacity, driving power, and foresight. In the
spring the melting snow combined with rain, and in the summer the
heavy rain brings down the mountain-sides, impedes construction
progress, often filling up what has already been done, and sometimes,
alas! burying workmen with it. In winter, snow and frost stopped all
work. Labour difficulties were another source of trouble. Enough was
not available on the spot, and many hundreds were engaged from
distant Baltistan and Ladak, and even Afghanistan. Skilled labour had
to be imported from the Punjab. With contractors other difficulties
arose. They would not work without an advance of money, and when they
got an advance many would decamp. Again cholera created still other
difficulties, and drove labour away when it had with much persuasion
been collected.
All these are no mean difficulties. They have, however, now been
overcome, and this autumn the Maharaja, in the presence of many
guests, opened the installation and transmitted the power to Baramula
and Srinagar.
The 5000 horse-power at present available will be utilised for
carrying out Mr. Field's and Major de Lotbiniere's great scheme for
dredging the bed of the Jhelum River and neighbouring marshes, and
thus preventing floods, and for reclaiming some 60,000 acres of
cultivable land. It will also be used for heating the water basins in
the silk factory and turning the reeling machinery, as well as for
lighting Srinagar.
When the railway which has so long been contemplated is at last
constructed, more electric power will be needed. And if the Durbar in
any way encourage outside enterprise, there will be demand for
electric power for oil-crushing, for saw-mills, for wool factories,
match factories, and many other purposes. In any European country or
American State the whole amount of electric power would have been
already sold. Similar rapidity of progress cannot be expected in
Kashmir. But still we may hope that now every one can see that the
electric power is there, and that it is an eminently useful product,
the demand will gradually arise, and the financial success of the
project be worthy of the skill and enterprise displayed by the
engineers.