THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY August 15, 1954

Power Supply from Nangal

TH E I r r iga t ion and Hydro Elec­tric Project in the northern

part of Punjab State consists of a straight gravity t y p e concrete storage dam known as Bhakra D a m having an overall height of approxi­mately 680 ft and storing for actual use approximately 5.5 mi l l ion acre feet of water.

The flow of water from this dam w i l l be controlled in such a man­ner as to supply normal irr igation requirements for roughly 3.6 mi l l ion acres embraced in a total area of 6\6 mi l l ion acres.

The water released from Bhakra goes roughly 6 miles down the l iver where it is diverted into the Nangal Canal System by the Nan-gal diversion dam. This dam is of pier type construction wi th a pair of sliding steel gates between each pair of piers. The total length is approximately 1,030 ft w i th a maxi­mum height of 90 i t . The maxi­m u m designed storage capacity of the Nangal pond is approximately 34.000 acre feet.

The water flowing into the canal is ult imately controlled by a head regulator which is of a similar type to the Nangal diversion darn itself. T h i s structure i s approximately 234 ft long.

The water passing through the head regulator flows through a con­crete lined canal for approximately 12 miles before reaching the first Nangal power house known as Ganguwal. At this location there is a drop of approximately 98 ft which is taken advantage of by a power house designed to have an installed capacity of three machines of 27,500 K V A each. The power from this station is fed into a step-up substation adjacent to it which in turn feeds it into the transmission system at 132,000 volts.

MANUFACTURE OF EQUIPMENT IN INDIA

W i t h the exception of the ful l capacity spillway and the power h o u s e superstructure, the de­signs of the entire project includ­ing substation steel structure were prepared by Westinghouse. The manufacture of certain items of equipment from Westinghouse de­sign was undertaken by the Gov­ernment Central Workshops, A m r i t -sar, who d id a very creditable job. The i r work included the manufac­ture of the turbine scroll cases, p i t

liners, draft tube liner section, radial Tainter gates, trash racks, hoist mechanism for gates and racks and the draft tube closing gates. The penstocks which are 18 ft dia­meter steel pipes taking water into the power house were built by the workshops 'located at Nangal town­ship.

At the substations, the steel struc­ture was fabricated by Government Central Workshops also f r o m Westinghouse designs.

Among the Indian manufacturers supplying equipment for this pro­ject was Mysore Electrical Indus­tries L t d , Bangalore. Switchgear manufactured, by this firm has been chosen both, for the Bhakra-Nangal and Hi rakud projects and is being supplied by I A E C of Bombay.

Al ter passing through the No 1 power house the water flows another 6 miles to Nangal power house No '2 known as K o t l a . This power house is for all practical purposes an exact duplicate of the No 1 power house wi th everything handled in a manner similar to that of power house No 1.

The equipment of the power houses consists of adjustable blade hydraulic turbines made for West­inghouse by the Baldwin-Lima-Hamil ton Corporation, Eddystone, Perm, USA. These turbines rated at 33.500 HP each drive Westing­house conventional type vertical shaft water wheel generators. The design of the. power house— sub­station arrangements follows the latest American practice wherein each turbine generator feeds its own step-up power transformer which is connected through oil c i r c u i t

.breakers to the transmission system. A l l of the major equipment con­sisting, of turbine*, generators, low voltage and high voltage switching equipment, transformers. circuit breakers, l ightning arresters isolat­ing switches, conduit, cable and other miscellaneous hardware as well as the power line carrier relay­ing system has been supplied by Westinghouse., or suppliers to West­inghouse.

For the Bhakra Nangal Power Gr id eleven outdoor substations are being completely equipped with English Electric Power Transiorm-ers, associated Switchgear and Con­trol equipment.

The entire Carrier telephone and telemetering system. manufactured by Siemens by Haiske AG has been supplied by Protos Engineering Co who have also under supply GH aesial ropeway. The Carrier relay­ing system, however which is of a different frequency is by Westing­house. Past Insulators by Steatite and Porcelain Products Eld were, supplied for the 132 KV outdoor substation switchgear of the Nangal Power Project through AEII ( India) L t d , who are the main contractors, The bulk of the earth moving

machinery is as usual Euclid's.

The transmission system con­sists of a twin circuit line ultimately designed for 2,20,000 volts which goes directly from power house No i to Ambala, thence to Panipat and finally to Delhi. At both Ambala and Panipat 33,000 volt lines radiate to various towns and villages in that general area. 'The designs and equipment for these two distribution substations were also supplied in like manner to the step-

SIGNIFICANT FACTORS IN

WESTINGHOUSE WATERWHEEL GENERATOR PERFORMANCE

RUGGED CONSTRUCTION

Use of steel castings or fabricated steel shapes of ample propor ­

tions insures durable, long-life operation under a l l load condit ions.

ADVANCED MATERIALS Westinghouse research has provided a steady supply of i m p r o v e d materials stronger, more efficient and w i t h less weight — to do the required j ob better. Newest of these is Thermalas t ic , an insulat ion w i t h superior the rma l s tabi l i ty , outstanding mois­ture resistance and inertness to chemical con tamina t ion and d i r t . Thermalas t ic actually resembles the copper to w h i c h it applies and remains adhered to i t . Stretching does not affect its proper­ties and i t w i l l always re turn to its or ig inal shape.

H I G H E F F I C I E N C Y

O p t i m u m rat io between efficiency and weight is achieved as a

na tura l byproduc t of design experience. Proper p ropor t ion ing of

mater ia l results in lower losses for vary ing load conditions.

MODERN DESIGN

L o n g experience in the design of large electrical equipment has led to the smooth-line, compact appearance and self-contained construction of Westinghouse generators,

SUPERIOR THRUST BEARING

A l l Westinghonse ver t ical generator units use a Kingsbury- type adjustable flat-shoe thrust bearing. Years of successful pe r fo rm­ance on nearly one thousand machines offer proof of superior design and construct ion.

STURDY GUIDE BEARINGS

Extra-large babbit ted bearing shoes or surfaces combined w i t h

ample provisions for lubr ica t ion insure smooth operat ion at a l l

speeds. On vertical units the use of i n d i v i d u a l o i l reservoirs

reduces the amount of p i p i n g requi red . Bearings on these

Westinghouse units r u n in a ba th of o i l .

Westinghouse

August 15, 1954 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY

up substations; at the two power houses. As these substations are de­signed for an ultimate transmission voltage of 220,000 volts, the circuit breakers and other switching equip­ment has been designed for that ultimate condition which w i l l be put into operation when the proposed power house for B h a k r a is completed.

A twin circuit transmission line of 132,000 volts goes from power house No 2 to the town of Rupar a n d t h e n continues west to Ludhiana where it ties into the electric supply system emanating from the existing generation station at jogindarnagar.

The power transmission and dis­t r ibut ion net-work embraces an area of approximately 65,000 sq miles, from Pathankot in the north to Palwal in the south and from Fazilka in the west to Saharanpur in the East.

The net-work comprises a total of 50 odd distribution substations, the equipment for which has been supplied by a number of British and European manufacturers.

One of the most difficult tasks in connection w i t h the project was the development of the designs for the power house foundations or sub­structure as they are called. The whole locality south of the Sarawak is composed of al luvial f i l l which has reached an estimated depth of something over 1,000 ft above bed rock. Because of this, what is term­ed as a " floating foundation " was required and consequently a great deal of time and effort was expend­ed by the Punjab I r r iga t ion Branch under the direction of Dr F H Kel log of the U S A in carrying out the necessary investigations. The ultimate design of the substructure was carried out under the direction of the USA's foremost engineers on this type of construction.

Another difficult problem was the satisfactory de-watering of the power house areas of excavation. The expert advice of American specialists in this field was utilized by the Punjab I r r igat ion Branch w i t h the result that the job was extremely wel l done. Special pumps were purchased by the Government for this purpose and the remainder of the equipment was built in Gov­ernment workshops from samples supplied from the USA.

Likewise the work carried out in the actual construction of the sub­structure was very commendably

done by the Irr igat ion Branch. Certain delays in construction were encountered chiefly from lack of steel and other bui lding materials when required.

The cranes supplied for the power house by a German f i rm were pur­

chased by Government on the basis of specifications provided to Gov­ernment by Westinghouse. This same firm undertook to bu i ld the main steel frames for the power house bui lding which covers the machinery.

THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY August 15,1954

TO bring water to thirsty lands and turn deserts into smiling fields bearing golden crops, this

is the dramatic and spectacular manner in which the role of i rr igat ion is usually described. And so when the sluice gates of the Nangal Darn were opened by Pandit Nehru , the picture that was sought to be conveyed in publicity literature was the flow of life-giving waters along a network of channels which would make the hitherto neg­lected and ar id districts of East Punjab blossom and carry the blessings of i r r igat ion fur­ther down to Pepsu and the desert areas of Jodhpur, where the rainfall averages less than 10 inches a year. We were also given the length of the canal system but not supplied w i t h any maps ou t l in ing the net­work. If only such a map is studied and compared w i t h a similar map of the West Punjab can the problem of water util isation of the Indus system of rivers be seen in its proper perspective. Maps are there to show the catchment area of the Sutlej river which has been impounded to feed the Nangal Canal. The site of the Bhakra which is s t i l l only an open gorge and the location of the reservoir that w i l l dam up the waters of the Sutlej further up, its elevation and its course along the

lower Shivaliks hills, passing in suc­cession, the Nangal reservoir w i th the Nangal dam and headworks at an altitude of 1 1.50 feet, the drop of a 100 feet to tu rn the wheels of the turbines in power house No. 1 and the subsequent drop to feed the second power house and finally the spill-over into the Bhakra canal on the one hand and the Ruper Head-works leading on to the Sirhind canal have al l been nicely brought out. Further up Ruper from the Sutlej branches off the Bist Daub canal. A l l this has also been repre­sented pictorially but not the net­work of the canal system.

To meet this deficiency, many

likely sources were searched but all proved disappointing. A n d then light came from an unexpected quarter. The only map readily available was the one w h i c h Richard L Park (who had been studying the Indian elections and whose for th­coming book on the subject is eager­ly awaited by many) , had used to illustrate his article on the Indus River Valley controversy which ap­peared in the News Letter of the M i d d l e East Institute of Washing­ton, U S A , in the issue of M a y 1, 1953, bearing the ominous sub-title. " Famine Conditions in Pakistan raise issue of the disposition of I r r i ­gation Waters in the Indus River

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August 15, 1954 THE ECONOMIC WEEKLY

V a l l e y " .

This is however, not quite an accident. I t was Mr Dav id Li l iean-thal of T V A fame, who first sensed the danger of the dispute over canal waters between the two Punjabs. His article on the subject in the Collier's Magazine in 1951 describ­ed the Punjab canal water dispute as "a bitter controversy, one that involves life itself to 42 mi l l ion peo­ple ". Li l ieanthal went further and said, " It is pure dynamite, a Punjab powder-keg ". Foreign correspon­dents in Karachi particularly British immediately took the cue and play­ed up the story even before- -that was their complaint, as a matter of fact—Pakistan had fully appreciated the gravity of the situation. The appreciation came however when Pakistan was faced wi th food short­age and had to import a mi l l ion tons of wheat. Water shortage, it was conceded, was not the only factor but it was an important factor. A n d the story began to be played up that if India proceeds w i t h its plans for the diversion of the waters of the Sutlej, large areas of the rich cotton and wheat growing districts of Pakistan wi l l become desert. Lilieanthal 's own estimate was five mi l l i on acres. It took some time for the Pakistanis to be convinced that this was a more serious matter than even the Kashmir issue. But in saving that " Kashmir in compari­son becomes hardly more than a piece of scenery ", the Karachi cor­respondent of The Economist went a l i t t le too far for British geograph­ers who studying the map after par t i t ion (The Changing Map of Asia—a Political Geographv. Ed. by W Gordon East and O H K Spate) had been convinced that without Kashmir , the hope of indus­trial development of Pakistan would be remote indeed, for the simple reason that West Pakistan had no source of power and Kashmir had al l the water power. For, by the time the rivers entered the plains of West Pakistan, they had no longer any nig drops which could be utilis­ed for the generation of electricity.

Discussing the resources of Paki­stan, the authors remarked that " these resources offer l i t t le pros­pect of heavy industrial develop­ment; l ighter agriculturally-based industries offer surer potentialities, but the necessary power is lacking unless Pakistan secures either Kash­mir or unhampered access to its power-sites. . . most of the good sites appear to lie either in Kashmir or in montane Punjab, a l l of which

is indisputably Ind ian . . . . On the whole modern industry hardly exists in Pakistan and, unless the acces­sion of Kashmir is secured, deve­lopment w i l l depend largely on access to Ind ian sources and is like­ly to be slow, the more so as Paki­stan is fiscally weak."

T h e same geographers came to the conclusion that India's i r r iga­tion problems would be insoluble because her river systems, except that of the Indus, d id not have a perennial flow of water, and were mostly seasonal and nearly dry in the summer months. The snow-fed rivers of the Punjab could alone supply perennial flow. Hence Ind ia must increasingly tu rn to the utilisa­tion of these waters.

This was not exactly the genesis of the water dispute; it was an orientation given to it that led Paki­stan to disown the agreement of 1948 which had sought to maintain the status quo.

The whole of the Indus Basin is somewhat dry; the part that is in West Pakistan is relatively drier, but that docs not make any substantia I difference, for agriculture in the basin in neither of the States can be sustained without i rr igat ion. This is the basis of the problem. The adequacy of waters carried by the Indus river system, only a small fraction of which is now utilised by the two States, is naturally, there­fore, the basis of the solution. Dis­t r ibut ion is a problem and matter of contention because present u t i l i ­sation is low and because of the accident that when the irr igation system was developed in the British days, the existence of large tracts of Crown lands in West Punjab led to the development of canal colonics in the West. This was not the best possible utilisation of the waters dictated by the natural features of the area and the technical problems of water utilisation but determined by the wholly extraneous factor that the Government happened to have large tracts of khask lands in the West, and the development of these lands happened' to offer the simplest method of raising a part of the cost of the projects quickly. The needs of East Punjab and its natural c laim for i rr igat ion waters was just as great but was neglected because of this accidental factor. After the part i t ion, this unbalanced develop­ment of the irr igation system left East Punjab w i t h only 20 per cent of the canals against an area of 34 per cent and a population of 42 per cent. In the years fol lowing the

par t i t ion when food shortage was grave, the ar id districts of Rohtak and Hissar suffered very severe draught as d i d the Bikaner State, now part of Rajasthan.

To put i t in another way, Ind ia has a population of 20 millions in the Indus basin against Pakistan's 22 millions; but it has 35 mi l l ion acres crying out for i r r igat ion of which some 10 mil l ion acres w i l l be covered when the i rr igat ion poten­tialities of the Bhakra Canal system are fully developed. This includes 5.9 mi l l ion acres to be covered by the main net work of the Bhakra Canal and 3,7 mil l ion acres under the Sirhind Canals. T h e length of the main canals and branches of the project is 677 miles and that of distributaries nearly 4,000 miles, the length of lined canals and branches alone being 341 miles. These are the basic data, translated very often into flowery language that the "parched lands of the Punjab, Pepsu and Rajasthan w i l l soon be turned into smiling fields of gold ." Of the 35 mi l l ion acres crying out for irr igation, only 10 mi l l ion acres can now hope to get i t ; what of the remaining 25 mi l l ion acres?

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