POST-WAR DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRIC POWER IN INDIA 123
The treatment of electricity as a matter of public concern has passed through many vicissitudes. The Government of India seems to have become aware of it for the first time in 1905 when, I find, a circular letter was issued by it to the Provincial Governments. Thereafter both the Provincial Governments and the Central Government seem to have gone to bed. They woke up when the urgency of active interest in electricity was emphasized by the Report of the Indian Industrial Commission published in
1918 and the Report of the Indian Munitions Board which came out a year later.
The Industrial Commission recommended the necessity for a Hydrographic Survey of India to be undertaken by Government rather than by private enterprise. The Government of India accepted this recommendation and appointed the late Mr. G.T. Barlow, C.I.E., then Chief Engineer, Irrigation Branch, the United Provinces, to take charge of the Hydrographic Survey as Chief Engineer, associating with him in the enquiry Mr. J. M. Mcarcs, M.I.C.E., Electrical Adviser to the Government of India. Soon after Mr. Barlow died, and his work was carried on by Mr. Mcares who produced three most excellent reports between 1919 and 1922 containing information Province by Province regarding the possibilities of Power Supply under five heads—(1) water power already developed, (2) plants under construction, (3) areas investigated but not developed, (4) known sites of which detailed examination is desirable, and (5) areas and sites not investigated.
Electricity—A Provincial Subject
Unfortunately under the changes made in the Government of India in consequence of the Act of 1919, Electricity became a Provincial subject. That Act unfortunately did not contain a provision as the present Act does of permitting the Central Government to spend its revenues on matters which it felt fit and proper although they were outside its field of administration. The result was that it became impossible for the Government of India to finance the Hydrographic Survey. A good, great and necessary piece of work for providing India with supply of electrical power came to an end.
There is no officer at the Centre in charge of the development of electricity in India with the result that we at the Centre had till recently