Domesticating electric power: Growth of industry,utilities and research in colonial Calcutta

Historiography of Electric Power Industry

Technological projects, such as electricity, born and expanded in a peculiar context, may or may not suit other contexts. It is evident from the archives of history of technology that the context was an important deciding factor for the development, design and transfer of technology. ⁵ The reception of technology was not just related to its physical suitability to an alien environment. Factors such as technological utility, organisation, technical know-how and economic viability, legal, cultural and political factors played a determining role. Apart from these, in the colonised context, colonialism too had a major role in the selection of technology. The model for the development of electricity in Calcutta was basically designed keeping in mind the interests of the colonial government. Nonetheless, the trajectory was continuously shaped and reshaped in the course of time based on the changing circumstances. At the outset, colonial political and economic ideology appears to be the major determining force of the development of electricity. Nevertheless, the local context played an equally significant role in determining the development of electricity.

In his pioneering work, Judith Tendler argues that research on the technological configuration of an electric power project is a valuable source of information in the study of opportunities for economic development. ⁶ Thus, he narrates the intervention of the state in the electric power sector of Brazil—due to political pressures, the basic electricity rate was fixed during a period of substantial inflation and the situation led to underinvestment in power generation by the private foreign utility. ⁷ Yet there was impressive growth in power capacity, according to Tendler, mostly due to government investment. Richard B. Du Boff characterises electrification as the most complex and sweeping technological change in manufacturing during the first half of the twentieth century. He further argues that electricity was responsible for bringing about the reorganisation of production processes and management with resulting productivity increase. ⁸

Another milestone in this archive is Thomas P. Hughes’s magnum opus. He talks about the two waves of industrialisation that swept over the Western world during the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. According to Hughes, the second era of rapid industrialisation (Germany and United States) is not well defined in the literature as the first (England and Scotland). However, when future historians probe its phenomena, electric power (especially high-voltage transmission) and the universal system of electric light and power will figure prominently in their interpretations. ⁹ He continues, during the formative years of the electrical industry, the existence of a substantial number of engineering institutions influenced the growth of the industry, and the rise of the industry shaped electrical engineering institutions. The training and education of the electrical technicians, engineers and scientists who filled the increasing number of positions offered by electrical utilities and manufacturers occurred on multiple levels during these periods.

However, later studies underline several defects in the approach of Hughes. Prominent among them is David E. Nye. He complains that Hughes’s account illuminates a particular aspect of the subject: the story of power generation and transmission. He never focuses on electricity’s meanings and uses for ordinary people. Nye argues technological history is often written from the point of view of the insider. Yet most people are not inventors, engineers or utility employees, and for them a device is only real once they begin to incorporate it into everyday experience. Nye further argues the electrification of America, his area of study, is thus far more than the story of inventions; it involves ‘a popular absorption in the potentialities for personal and social transformation’. ¹⁰

In the Indian context, the tone is set by Srinivasa Rao in his study on the electrification of Madras Presidency. The colonial economic and political priorities came into conflict with the functions that the Indians wanted the electricity system to perform. This disjunction influenced the development of the electric power system. According to him, the combination of circumstances that influenced the development of electricity in a colonised territory was quite unusual in many ways and considerably shaped its ultimate character. The introduction of electricity transformed the structure of industry in India. All the pre-electricity sources of motive power gradually disappeared after the sway of electricity. This was due to, as Rao argues, the scale of production, cheapness and cleanliness of electricity. ¹¹

Modern Technology and Indigenous Society

‘In those days there were neither gas lamps nor electricity; even the kerosene lamp, when it came dazzled us with its brilliance…. Night Calcutta in our childhood days was not so lively. Now after sunset, another day starts, i.e., day with electric lights.’ Rabindranath Tagore thus explains the marvels of electricity while looking back at the days of oil lamps. ¹² Electricity was considered as panacea for basic urban problems and one of the important means in the management of urban space. Around the start of the twentieth century, British residents of Calcutta were writing more about the city than ever before. As one contemporary noted, ‘Life in Calcutta is no longer what it was in the “good old days”…. There is everything to remind her citizens…that she is the capital of the British Raj…a new Calcutta is rising in our midst…. On every hand the electric car and the electric fan tell of the advent of a new era…’. ¹³ The last three decades of the nineteenth century saw some significant improvements: underground water pipes and drains in some areas from the 1870s; a pontoon bridge across the Hooghly River in 1874; horse-drawn trams from 1880; gas lights on streets, and then from 1891 a slow replacement of them by electricity; the first telephones in 1882 and a few motor cars from 1896; ¹⁴ and, as mentioned by Cotton, electric lights and fans in a few homes and electric trams from around 1900.

When the Electric Supply Company first started their business, they were apprehensive about the acceptance of electricity by the Indians. However, all their fears proved groundless and electricity was gradually very successful. Although there were apprehensions about this new technology among the general public, a good number of them welcomed it enthusiastically. ¹⁵ For example, Jotindra Mohan Tagore wished to install electric current for his garden house, ‘Emerald Bower’, at the Barrackpore Trunk Road as early as 1904. The Electric Supply Company that time had been erecting poles on that road and Jotindra Mohan approached them. However, as his house was situated outside the supply area, the Company expressed their inability. An enkindled Jotindra Mohan this time requested the government— ‘It will be a very great convenience to me if I can have current for lights and fans, which I wish to install in my house.’ ¹⁶ The Bengal government finally agreed to supply electric current outside the supply area of CESC to Tagore’s garden house by the Company. However, due to some unknown reason, the process was delayed and electricity reached ‘Emerald Bower’ only in 1908 when the project of erection of posts for carrying overhead mains was conducted on the Grand Trunk Road by CESC. ¹⁷

Even before the private generators of electricity had started illuminating the streets of Calcutta, they had made a mark in the lives of the elite of the city as an exciting new entertainment. This is evident from the following newspaper report:

A brilliant night at Belvedere—The handsome reception rooms…were never seen to better advantage than on the occasion of the ball given by Sir Alexander and Lady Mackenzie on Thursday night. In the ball room alone there were… 5 handsome cut-glass electriliers, each of 12 lamps, suspended in the centre of the room, besides 18 wall brackets, each comprising 3 lamps. The adjoining boudoir was fitted with bracket lamps, while the staircase and vestibule were lighted with cut-glass pendants. In the same way, the supper room was fitted with bracket lamps besides coloured lamp shades which together lit up the apartment very effectively. ¹⁸

Another journal announced

Electric Installation at Belvedere: The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal has granted an allowance of ` 100 per month, for six months, to Messrs F and C Osler, for their supervision of the installation of electric lighting apparatus at Belvedere, in view of the excellent way in which the work has been done and the superior quality of the appliances fitted up. ¹⁹

Electricity in Calcutta, as elsewhere in the world, was first used more for lighting purposes. Its use by the manufacturing and other industrial organisations was a later phenomenon. Street lighting began as a measure of safety and such it has largely remained. Until July 1857, the streets of Calcutta were lighted exclusively with oil lamps. Since then, when Oriental Gas Company first secured its foothold in Calcutta, gas lights had been if not the only, at least the best form of illumination. ²⁰ Street lighting is regarded as one of the most indispensable functions of municipal bodies all over the world. Thus, this was one of the statutory duties of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation.

The first electrically illuminated street in Calcutta was Harrison Road. After the completion of the road in 1891, the municipal authorities arranged with the contractors, Messer Kilburn & Co., for its lighting by electricity for an annual payment of ` 9,750. <sup>21</sup> The dynamos were set up at the Halliday Street Pumping Station at a cost of ` 92,000. Low-tension overhead cables supported on posts were used for transmitting the energy. In September 1895, the lieutenant governor of Bengal enquired about the danger of overhead light wires in Harrison Road. Experts commented that an overhead system was not suited to a crowded thoroughfare such as the Harrison Road, and an underground concentric two-conductor cable was preferable. It recommended concentric cables cased in lead. ²² Finally, it switched to underground cables. In 1895–96, the substitution of overhead by underground cables caused a temporary suspension in the electric lighting of this road. Kilburn & Co. continued to light Harrison Road with electricity until 1905–06 when CESC took it over. The offer of the Company to light the street with 70 Lucas lights, at an annual charge of ` 8,228, was accepted, and the plant at Halliday Street was sold. ²³

Civic life in Calcutta is now unthinkable without street lighting. In the first decade of twentieth century, electric lights were installed at numerous streets of the city—Harish Chander Mukherjee’s Road in 1904; Old Ballygunge Road, Hazra Road, Mott’s Lane, Clive Street, Armherstreet, Roy Bagan Street, Wellington Square and Medical College Street in 1905; in the next year Durmahatta Street; Wellesely Square in 1907; New China Bazar Street in 1908 and gradually the whole Calcutta. ²⁴ The Electric Supply Company used to apply to the electrical inspector of the province with blueprints for permission to lay electric supply lines at any street. The electrical inspector then forwarded the application to the Bengal government, which also consulted the director general of telegraphs about the feasibility of the plan. ²⁵

In the beginning, the Power Company intended to use aerial lines in the streets supported on posts. By this system of distribution, according to them, the difficulties in maintaining underground cables in the humid climate of India could be solved. The use of overhead wires was completely alien to India that time and thus faced severe criticism in the government and public circle. The then director general of telegraphs, C. H. Reynolds, warned the government about ‘the danger to the public of having naked overhead wires carrying powerful currents’ and suggested to use ‘lead-covered underground cables’. ²⁶ Referring to the overhead electric traction in Calcutta, the Rangalaya, contemporary Bengali journal, wrote—‘We are against such traction. The copper conducting wire overhead may break down or hang down in tempests and kill passers-by.’ ²⁷ Thus, in the early years of electricity in Calcutta the conductors for distributing current from the generating stations to consumers were partly underground and partly overhead. Underground cables were laid in the main streets and more thickly populated areas, while overhead wires were erected in the outskirts.

At the end of 1912, there were 250 miles of underground and 124 miles of overhead mains, a total 354 miles. The general idea was to replace the overhead lines by the more costly underground cables, as the demand grew. ²⁸ For a pioneer enterprise such as the CESC, with practically no experience of underground cables in a tropical climate, in spongy soil like that of Calcutta, the selection of underground cabling system in some crowded areas presented many difficulties. Most of the cabling was done according to what was then known as the ‘V. B. System’ consisting of rubber-insulated cables, laid in bitumen-filled cast iron troughs. ²⁹

Even though electricity was introduced commercially in the city in 1899, gas seems to have had an edge over it as a medium of street lighting. In 1907, tenders were invited for lighting the city by gas, electricity or other illuminant. Two tenders for electric lighting were received, but the Calcutta Corporation finally decided to accept the tender of the Oriental Gas Company. ³⁰ A new contract with the Gas Company was made to improve the lighting of the Calcutta Maidan by high-power lanterns. ³¹ In 1909–11, the advisability of improving the lighting of the more important places was considered by the Corporation. A noteworthy improvement in the electric lighting was effected from 1914 when the new fringe areas (Manicktala, Ultadanga, etc.) were lighted with 34 100-watt electric lamps. ³² High-power Keith lamps of 1,000 candle-power and latest type high-power electric lamps were fixed in that year on the Corporation Street and Chowringhee Road to compare the efficiency and the economy in the expenditure between gas and electricity. The CESC, which made this experiment at its own cost, demonstrated the advances of electricity over gas for the time being. However, electricity had to compete tooth and nail with gas. On the recommendation of the Public Utilities and Market Standing Committee, the Corporation concluded a new agreement with the Oriental Gas Company for a period of five years as late as 1939. ³³

However, in the conflict between gas and electricity, the victory of the latter was inevitable. Being a superior technology, as an illumine electric light stood ahead of gas. The introduction of metal filament glow lamps, after 1915 by the CESC, added to the charm. ³⁴ This was recognised in the official arena. The Special Committee of the Calcutta Corporation appointed to consider the arrangements of the city lighting, observed ‘… as regards illumination and cost, electric lighting is better and cheaper than gas’. ³⁵ The Electric Company received exceptionally favourable treatment from the government also which had conceived and encouraged electricity generation very much as an industry by itself and had therefore evolved a fairly elaborate policy to govern and shape the various electrical undertakings. The Bengal government appreciated the role of the CESC several times as ‘a great portion of the population of an Indian town is of a class which would never be able to pay for installing and hiring electric lights and fans’ without the generosity of the Supply Company in the matter of pricing. ³⁶

The Calcutta Improvement Trust (1912) preferred electricity to gas in illuminating most of the parks and streets it constructed. ³⁷ The advent of electricity had an impact on the designing of buildings. Architects henceforth had to draw their design to accommodate the electricity supply plan. ³⁸ The CESC began to play an increasing role in the lighting of streets of the city. It had become the main provider of electricity to the government establishments, industrial works and to the centralised street-lighting system. Street lighting as a public facility, on the one hand, and electric light at individual houses and shops, on the other, gave a new look to the streets of the city. There was an increasing demand from both government and domestic sections of the city as well. Within the urban limits itself, thermal electricity gained popularity and there was a rapid expansion of consumer base for the Power Company.

A Transformer: Electricity and Industrial Development

Rabindranath Tagore once remarked: ‘… steam and electricity shall be our nerve and muscle’. ³⁹ The introduction of steam significantly affected the industrial scenario of British India, but it was electricity which accelerated the production process and the development of large-scale industries. However, economic historians of India have not given adequate attention to this technology so far. ⁴⁰ Electricity was instrumental in stimulating the development of many older industries along new lines. In many cases, it also gave impetus to the emergence of whole series of new industries.

The public of Calcutta experienced this new technology at least from the last decade of nineteenth century onwards and the credit definitely goes to Shibdas Sil, the proprietor of the ‘Dey, Sil & Co.—Electricians, Electrometallurgists and Brass Founders’. The Statesman reported in 1885:

In our Friday’s issue we mentioned a novelty in marriage processions, which was the innovation of the electric light. The procession having taken place at night, the light, a Serrin 1,500 candle-power, was most effective and successful. The electrician who arranged the apparatus is a rising young member of scientific Bengal, Mr Sil, of the firm of Dey, Sil & Co., in Wellington Street…. ⁴¹

He was the pioneer Bengali entrepreneur in electrical industry. One can obtain the following information from an advertisement of the company published in 1895:

Electric Light Stationary—Electric Light Portable, Of 1,500 candle-power, sufficient to illuminate brilliantly a quarter mile straight space, are supplied in Town and Moffusil for Illuminating Marriage Processions, court-yards, Halls, Gardens &c. These lights have been carried along with more than 200 Marriage Processions with unequalled success, since 1883, and have been honoured with numerous testimonials of Gentries, Nobilities, Rajahs, and Princes. Estimate for Permanent Electric Lighting Installations Arc and Incandescent System for Illuminating Palaces, Buildings, Halls, Parks etc. are furnished on application, Dey, Sil & Company. ⁴²

Apart from arranging for lights at meetings, parties, wedding processions, etc., they manufactured a wide range of apparatus: carriage lamps lit by batteries of their own device, sewing machines and table fans worked by electric motors. ⁴³ These were displayed at important gatherings—including the Second National Congress of 1886 ⁴⁴ and the 1888 Annual Conversazione of the Mohammedan Literary Society, and won high praise from eminent scientists as well as the viceroy himself. ⁴⁵ This pioneer Bengali electrical firm was in operation until 1912, although on a reduced scale.

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Figure 1

Source: The Statesman, 1 December, 1895.

For the business class, especially Indians, the economic viability of electricity was the main reason for choosing electricity over gas, oil and animates forms of energy. As soon as they realised the power of electricity, they chose this new technology rejecting the earlier versions. In those days, to get new electric connection, the joint application of the consumer and the undertaker was necessary. ⁴⁶ Very soon, the department concerned with electricity of the Bengal government was flooded with such joint applications. In the colonial scheme, electricity was used in the prisons for two important reasons: first, to control the inmates and second, to establish some industrial units there. In one such case, the authorities of the Alipore Central Jail intended to use electricity to run a 22-BHP motor for better efficiency of the jail workshop. ⁴⁷ One Surendra Narain Singha Chowdhury, proprietor of the Bengal Soap Factory, applied for electric current for one 7½-HP motor for manufacturing soap. The government was perhaps a little late in sanctioning; at this he again requested to approve his scheme at an early date ‘as the work of the factory is suffering a heavy loss for the stoppage of the work for about a month’. ⁴⁸

The manager of the Bengal Silk Mills Co. Ltd asked the permission of the government to connect with the network of the CESC, which was within a couple of 100 yards of their premises but outside the supply area of the Power Company. The manager wrote: ‘We have had no trouble about getting the Gas Supply…. Now we think it a distinct hardship that we cannot have the same privileges as the Calcutta people because we are a short distance outside the boundary….’ ⁴⁹ The government granted the necessary permission to erect an electric supply line from the west side of the Canal at Ultadanga Bridge to the Bengal Silk Mills situated at the Manicktollah Municipality. ⁵⁰ We have plenty of such examples where the small and medium business ventures gradually switched to electricity. The Eagle Engineering Co. put an application to the government to get electric current for one 4½-HP motor which was used for driving a drilling machine. They also assured the government that for the safety of the general public, they would enclose the apparatus in a separate casing. ⁵¹ Permissions were granted in all such cases after proper inspection by the electrical inspector.

The mechanisation process, which had already been initiated with the introduction of steam power, prepared the ground for the speedy modernisation by electrifying the existing industries. The important industries served by the electric grid were the jute mills, cotton mills, paper mills, hydraulic presses, etc. situated both sides of the River Hooghly. ⁵² For industrial purposes, the Bengal government permitted the supply of electric energy in bulk and placed the industrial supply ahead of the supply of energy for traction, lighting and fans in the priority list by the first decade of twentieth century. ⁵³ This made the power market of Calcutta more lucrative to the private supply companies. Perhaps for the first time, the CESC felt the heat of severe competition, and although they finally emerged victorious, they had to provide certain special rates for the big consumers of electricity like various industries. ⁵⁴ However, this in turn helped to strengthen the power supply industry.The big factories provided the ‘day load’ to CESC and thus benefitted the general public by helping to lower the cost of generation. ⁵⁵

However, R. P. Adams, Chief Inspector of Factories, complained about the CESC:

It is, moreover, a notorious fact that, in Calcutta where fuel is cheaper than in almost any other city in the world, the rates charged by the Electric Supply Corporation for small power users, are so high that the factories have invariably considered it cheaper to install their own small steam plant. These small installations are, however, far from economical, and are expensive to maintain. ⁵⁶

According to him, the oil mills and rice mills, which had sprung up recently in Tollygunge, suffered badly. Here, an interesting point one should notice—many times these mills were closed because of power failure or power shortage. None of them maintained any kind of alternative power resources at their premises. Before the electrification of the large-scale industries, two agencies were seen as responsible for the shutdown of the industry. One was management (lockout) and the other was labour strike, but with the advent of electricity a third agency, that is, technology came up.

It is important to note that almost for the initial two decades of the twentieth century, the colonial government applied electricity more for administrative and military purposes than for improvements in manufacture and commodity production. It did not utilise electricity as an economic instrument in that sense till the Indian Industrial Commission (1916–18) recommended the acceleration of industrialisation in India. The committee indentified limited availability of power as one of the constraints of India’s restricted industrial growth. ⁵⁷ It was underlined that industrial and agricultural development would largely depend on the availability of electricity.

Once the value of electricity was proved, thanks to the Industrial Commission’s report, the colonial government recognised its potential in extracting resources from the colonies and intensified investigations on the large-scale hydropower and thermal power sites throughout India. However, due to lack of experts in hydrology to identify hydroelectric power sites, unfamiliarity of electricity among the natives and economic difficulties, provincial governments did not show adequate interest in investigating power sites. ⁵⁸ When the British government asked the provinces to conduct investigations, they did not respond enthusiastically. Nevertheless, the process started and few reports were submitted. However, experts called these reports unscientific and inaccurate. ⁵⁹ The Industrial Commission’s recommendations envisioned the British government as the ultimate authority of power resources in India. The constitution of the Hydro-Electric Survey of India (HESI) points to the colonial government’s priority to exploring hydroelectric sites. Nevertheless, most of the industrial sites of the country, including Calcutta, were situated at great distances from those parts of the country where the natural features exhibited possibilities for the generation of water power. ⁶⁰ Apart from that, most of the coal deposits were located in the Bengal Presidency and Assam. This also acted as a stimulus for the growth of thermal power in Calcutta.

In this context, the much acclaimed Hindi film Swades (2004) is worth a mention. It tells the story of Mohan (Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan), a US-based NASA employee who returns to India and settles down at his childhood village to improve the deplorable condition of his village. With his money, technical acumen and a few local recruits, he builds a small hydroelectric plant on a hillside just outside the village. We have such enterprising gentlemen in the early twentieth century Calcutta also. Consider for instance the Shillong Hydro-electric Ltd, although situated in Assam, the protagonists of this hydroelectric scheme were mostly Bengalis. When the proposal first arose in the government circle in 1905, it was part of the Bengal Presidency. J. W. Meares, the then electrical adviser to the Bengal government, even identified the Beadon Falls and its adjacent areas as the proposed hydroelectric site in 1908. However, the proposal did not see the light of day. Many years later, Ramanath Roy, a local entrepreneur, revived the plan and formed a joint company, Shillong Hydro-electric Ltd. Subsequently, Bidhan Chandra Roy, a famous doctor of Calcutta and later the first chief minister of independent West Bengal, associated himself with the project and provided the necessary funds. His younger brothers Subodh Chandra Roy and Sadhan Chandra Roy (electrical engineer) were also closely involved. However, the role of one Khitichandra Sanyal, an electrical engineer, was perhaps the most crucial. ⁶¹ Work started with right earnest at the Beadon Falls in 1921 and two years later Shillong observed the first glimpse of electric lights in October 1923. In those days, the work was an example of high standard of hydraulic and electrical engineering managed entirely by the Bengali entrepreneurs and technologists.

While lanterns were meant mainly for the villages and partly for the towns, electric lamps catered to the needs of the latter. While electric lamps were introduced in Calcutta by the foreign businessmen in the early twentieth century, the Bengali manufacturers invested in this field in large numbers in the 1930s. The most notable name in this sector was the Bengal Electric Lamps Works (BELW), popularly known as the Bengal Lamp. It was formed in 1932 as a private company at Kasba, in the southern fringe of the city and the proprietors were Suren Roy, Kiran Roy and Hemen Roy—three brothers. Both Suren and Kiran educated at Germany and later while Suren Roy joined as a professor of electrical engineering, the younger brother Kiran became the secretary of the Managing Committee of the College of Engineering & Technology, Jadavpur. ⁶² At first, they started on a small scale and initially produced 200 lamps a day. The formative stage was naturally hard and they had to struggle a lot to get a foothold in the market. In the latter half of 1932, it was converted into a public limited concern with an issued capital of ` 3 lakh. ⁶³

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Figure 2

Source: The Calcutta Municipal Gazette, Vol. XV (21), 30 April, 1932.

Gradually, the company installed new machines and started manufacturing 1,000 lamps every day. The production of vacuum lamps was followed and accompanied by that of gas-filled lamps by March 1934, which were initially of 60 watts to 100 watts, but later increased to 200 watts. ⁶⁴ The steady progress of the Bengal Lamps is attested by the fact that within two years of its inception, the company could extend its market network from Bengal to such distant areas of Madras, Bombay, United Provinces and Punjab. Its lamps were of a high quality. These had to pass many outside tests such as those of the Government of India, Lighting Department of the Calcutta Corporation, the CESC Ltd and many mills. It was the intrinsic quality of their lamps that earned many medals and first-class certificates for BELW, and enabled them to develop despite keen competition from foreign and indigenous manufacturers. ⁶⁵ One of its main customers was the government. The number of lamps supplied to the government increased from 28,000 in 1935–36 to 80,000 in 1936–37, and the demand had been rising without a break. Bengal Lamps survived after independence (1947) also. Prafulla Chandra Ray (1861–1944), eminent chemist, thus praised ‘Bengal Rosney’, the swadeshi electric lamp manufactured by the Bengal Lamp:

I have been to the recent exhibition at the Sradhyananda Park and was delighted to find it illuminated throughout with ‘Bengal’ electric lamps manufactured at Calcutta. The bulbs have stood the test of continued use for over a couple of months and are still going on all right. This is one of the few rare instances of a successful indigenous industry…. Both in quality and in price the articles turned out compare favourably with imported goods. The organisers and workers are some of my past pupils and also of the Bengal Technical Institute who have got high scientific training to their credit. ⁶⁶

Evolution of Electrical Engineering

The advent of a new technology necessitated the introduction of new institutional facilities. Referring to large-scale technologies such as the electric supply system in Europe and America, Thomas Hughes argues that when the new system gains momentum, a supportive context or culture forms rapidly. Human capital and institutions developed to keep pace with the advancement of the technology. ⁶⁷ According to this hypothesis, such supportive systems are supposed to emerge in colonised countries also and they did. In the case of Calcutta, supportive systems such as community of experts, electrical engineers and institutional facilities evolved along with the electricity system.

When electricity system was started and was gaining popularity, a lack of expertise to organise the system was felt. As the network widened and as the power generation stations increased, it became inevitable for the colonial government to create an electrical engineering community within India as a complete import of engineers from London was a costly option. Hence, the government started the electrical engineering course, albeit at a very elementary level in the beginning. An official correspondence of 1896 reveals the following:

The Lieutenant-Governor is endeavouring to establish at Sibpur a training class for electricians competent to find employment under the various firms who are now engaged in developing this class of business in Calcutta and elsewhere. It is largely with a view to the instruction of this class that the scheme was originally started by the College authorities. ⁶⁸

Thus, a full practical course in electrical engineering was already introduced at the Civil Engineering College, Sibpur, in the previous year. ⁶⁹ While delivering lecture on ‘electric traction’, J. W. Meares inspired the students of Sibpur about electrical engineering:

I am very pleased to be able to congratulate the students who have taken up the special electrical classes on the success of those who have preceded them in obtaining appointments. This has been invariably the case, I believe, and the demand has actually been in excess of the supply up to the present time. And yet it may be safely be said that the electrical era in India has scarcely commenced; for so far as I know there are, excluding private plants, only three public electric-supply stations and one tramway system actually working, and about half-a-dozen more schemes in contemplation on under construction. This province is well to the fore in the matter, and Calcutta as is only right holds the first place with its extensive installations…. ⁷⁰

A proposal for a complete electric lighting installation at the college was initiated in 1895. Dr P. Bruhl, Professor of Physics, prepared an estimate for the installation and to serve as a means of practical instruction for electrical engineering students. The modernisation of the workshops through the introduction of electric power plants in place of the old steam power drives again served a similar purpose. ⁷¹ Three students who had gone through the new electrical course qualified during 1898–99, and the Public Instruction in Bengal reported, ‘all obtained well-paid appointments at once’. ⁷²

A combined electrical and mechanical engineering department was started at the College in 1902. This department used to take both theoretical and practical classes in electrical engineering for the professional group of the bachelor of engineering degree course in civil engineering. ⁷³ In the year 1902, the students of the college started publishing a monthly journal in Bengali, Shibpur College Patrika. Their intention was noble: to disseminate modern techno-scientific knowledge among the artisan class in vernacular. This journal published a wide variety of popular articles on science and technology and the contributors were mainly students of the College. In one such instance, the author narrated the marvels of electricity:

The main gossip of today’s Calcutta is the electric tramways! This modern mode of transport is not horse-driven or human-driven, not even steam-driven—but electricity is the prime mover for tramcars. One become perplex while considering the vast range of activity of this new technology! In every aspect of our life electricity is now an obedient servant to mankind. Electric-stove for modern cooking (as substitute of fire), electric-fan during the hot summer season, and electric-lamp for illumination in the night—everywhere is electricity. To run the machines of a factory, electricity plays the pivotal role by producing hundreds and thousands of horse-power. If one wants to talk with a friend miles away from him, the remedy is telephone—another offshoot of electricity. One cannot think beyond electricity in modern times. ⁷⁴

This venture however did not last long and with the departure of the editors (Atul Chandra Bagchi and Upendranath Kar) from the college; the publication was discontinued in 1908.

The Calcutta University granted affiliation to the BE degree in all branches of engineering, namely, civil, mechanical, electrical and mining of the college in 1911. In those days, electrical engineering mainly dealt with electrical power generation, transmission and utilisation. With the multiplication of the number of electrical power houses, and with the increase of its industrial usage, the demand for men trained in the use of electrical machinery and acquainted with the fundamentals of this technology began to grow and the contemporary engineering colleges started upgrading their facilities for this particular branch of engineering. Sibpur Engineering College was also not an exception. ⁷⁵ In the session 1912–13, the electrical engineering department was separated from the mechanical engineering department. It had a positive impact on the development of electrical engineering as a distinct branch. The training in electrical engineering was confined almost entirely to the apprentice (or subordinate) stage. Students in this branch first had to go through the ordinary four years’ course for Public Works Department (PWD) overseer students, and then specialise in electrical work for some 15 months. In the first four years, they spent much time in the various mechanical workshops, and also took such subjects as steam engine and applied mechanics. Thus, considerable time was devoted to civil engineering and other subjects of little subsequent use to them in later life. ⁷⁶

The Indian Industrial Commission visited the College during 1916–17. B. Heaton, the then principal, in his testimony before the Commission, remarked

The mechanical and electrical engineering course of its present lines is quite a recent departure… .It is thought that if picked lads to be taken into the college after having completed four years of an apprentice course satisfactorily they will be of more immediate value to employees on passing out of Sibpur than those who have only been through a college course. ⁷⁷

Electrical engineering as a subject was introduced but it took long time to initiate research in electricity engineering; a small community of Indian electrical engineers came up but colonial engineers retained upper hand. Finally, electrical technology was transferred and marketed but technology manufacturing was not encouraged. ⁷⁸ Given the disadvantageous position, very few Indian entrepreneurs tried to establish electrical industries on their own financial capacity or applied for state aid. The Indian Industrial Commission in its report perhaps captured the lacuna best:

In the past, the education of engineers has been too much influenced by the immediate requirements of the PWD, without regard to the future or to those other interests in India which can be handled only by engineers. The greater part of the work done in the college is the training of upper subordinates, lower subordinates, surveyors and draftsmen…. In the four principal colleges, increasing attention has, in recent years, been paid to the provision of instruction in mechanical and electrical engineering; but the measures adopted are inadequate and are conceived on altogether too narrow lines to meet the needs, present and prospective, of a rapidly expanding industrial system. ⁷⁹

In spite of all these hindrances, the growth of electrical engineering was steady at the College. The degree course in electrical engineering was introduced during the year 1935–36, and the first batch of electrical engineering graduates under Calcutta University was out in 1936. ⁸⁰ In the same year, the department also undertook to train up Bengal Nagpur Railway Apprentices. In 1943–44, evening coaching classes in electrical engineering were arranged here for several R.A.F units stationed in and near Calcutta for two years. ⁸¹

It was not only the colonial government which stressed the need for better institutional facilities for effective maintenance of technological projects. The local intellectuals, politicians, who were also aware of the significance of investment in the human capital formation, recognised the necessity of the technological imperatives stimulated by higher technical education. When their consistent demand failed to expand the scope of technological training, the Bengali intellectuals came up with their own model. The alternative crystallised as Jadavpur College (National Council of Education or NCE) in the first half of the twentieth century. There was a demand for trained professionals from India’s emerging industrial class also.

Jadavpur College offered a 4-year degree course in electrical engineering from 1910 onwards. The graduate in this discipline knew the design, construction, operation and maintenance of electrical machinery and could take charge of electric supply schemes, illumination, electric railways, communication, etc. ⁸² The faculty members, many obtained foreign training, of the electrical engineering department were associated with the leading business firm of the city at various capacity. On the other hand, the industrial entrepreneurs dealing with electricity were involved with the college. The electrical engineering department was strengthened by the appointment of Suren Roy (1924), a master’s degree holder from Harvard University. He was one of the founding members of the Bengal Lamp. It had its own installation of electric lighting. The faculty members of the electrical engineering department, with the help of their students, successfully installed the power utility system at Jadavpur. ⁸³

Power and water for the workshops, laboratories, college buildings, hostels and staff quarters, etc. were supplied from a power plant ‘consisting of one 106 B.H.P. 4 cylinder Crude Oil Engine directly coupled to a D.C. Generator and one 75 B.H.P. Bellis Morcom Compound Steam Engine and generating set fed with steam from a Bebcock Wilcox Water-tube Boiler and other accessories’. ⁸⁴ These two engines alternatively supplied power to the college campus and were also used for instructional purposes. The power plant was designed by the professors of the electrical engineering department with the active help of the students.

The first few decades of twentieth century saw the massive electrification programme, both thermal and hydro, in India. The construction of these power production sites was itself considered an industry. These were also centre of employment generation in two ways: direct and indirect. Directly it provided employment at the site itself and indirectly by providing electricity, as a motive power, to industries. A number of electrical engineers of Jadavpur were involved in these projects in various capacities. They were associated with the industrial concerns such as Bengal Electric Lamp Works, General Electric Co., Indian Iron & Steel Co., National Iron & Steel Co. and Siemens (India). ⁸⁵ Jadavpur College also published a journal, but unlike its counterpart in Sibpur, this was written in English—Journal of College of Engineering & Technology (1928). It was a result of co-operative endeavour between the faculty members and students of the Institute. It represented a glance of the techno-scientific and world view of the Indian technocrats. Nirmal K. Sengupta, a final year student of electrical engineering (1937), wrote on electricity:

Now as to the different eras of thought about the nature of electricity; in the first of these eras, beginning probably with the earliest observations in the middle of the sixteenth century, electricity was regarded as a soul or spirit; the second era may be said to have been opened by Carden in 1551 and closed by Maxwell in 1865, during which electricity was regarded as a material fluid of one or two kinds; in the third era electricity with its various manifestations was regarded as some kind of another disturbance of a continuous nature; the fourth era is that which is still with us. It may be called the atomic or quantum period, in which it is noteworthy that but little attention, has been paid to the ultimate nature of electricity and a great deal to its structure. Of course knowledge of the structure is likely to give some useful hint in future as to the nature of electricity. ⁸⁶

The demand for the electrical engineering among the Bengali intelligentsia was steadily on the increase. The authority of the College was also in an expanding mood in the context of ‘rapid development in ideas about the standard and scope of Technical Education’. ⁸⁷ Accordingly, the courses were reframed—the engineering department with a five years’ course in electrical engineering and the junior technical department with a three-year course in electrical engineering. ⁸⁸

To take the advantage of the techno-industrial boom of the World War II, the College authority further decided to expand the scope of engineering education, especially electrical. In the prevailing war scenario, the government also compelled to change their attitude towards Jadavpur—a nationalist institution. A direct contribution of this college to the war effort was the provision of training for war technicians for military and civilian industries. ⁸⁹ A manufacturing department was opened at the college to utilise the workshops in a profitable basis without however weakening its efficiency for teaching purposes. It was considered that such an undertaking would benefit the students by giving them a practical demonstration of the commercial side of the workshop while increasing the avenue of income of the college. ⁹⁰ The electrical engineering laboratory consisted of different types of modern electrical machines and instruments for demonstrating the application for the general rules and principles of electrical engineering. There was also a moderately equipped laboratory for communication engineering, where various experiments on radio, telegraphy and telephony were carried out. In the electrical workshop, facilities were provided for repairing, designing and building up of electrical generators and motors, etc. ⁹¹

The Jadavpur College produced thousands of engineers of diverse denominations in the course of its career in the first half of the twentieth century. They were being utilised far and wide throughout India in positions of technical, industrial and commercial importance. A considerable part of the technical and industrial activities of the country was being manned by the electrical engineers of Jadavpur as founders, proprietors, managing directors as well as technicians. ⁹² At the end of our period of discussion, the course in electrical engineering of Jadavpur provided training in the fundamental subjects of the science of electrical engineering with particular application to the broad field of design, construction, operation and maintenance of electrical machinery, electric supply schemes, illumination, electric railways, communications and other branches involving the application of electricity. The theoretical work ran parallel with an elaborate course in the laboratories, which were provided with apparatus adapted to the needs of undergraduate study. Here ‘S. Ghosh Memorial Scholarship’ was awarded annually for practical training in the subject abroad to a deserving ‘Bengali Hindu’ candidate who passed the final examination. ⁹³ Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1887–1949), renowned economist, rightly observed:

The socio-economic structure of Bengal as of all India had been used to the profession of the lawyer, the medical man, the office clerk, and the school or college teacher of literary and philosophical subjects. The scholars that were turned out of the Government’s Engineering College at Shibpur were chiefly civil engineers skilled in building of roads and houses for municipalities and elsewhere. It is the N.C.E engineers who commenced enriching the society with new professions nurtured by the tonic of machinery. The country began to get acculturated to technocracy, mechanics, chemical operations, electrical energies and so forth. ⁹⁴

Appropriating the Knowledge of Electricity

At the request of the government, Louis Schewendler, superintendent electrician of the Government Telegraph, carried out an experiment of illuminating Indian railway stations with electricity amid protests by the Oriental Gas Company in the 1877. Ultimately, three years later two platforms of the Howrah Station were lighted with four carbon arc lamps powered by 25 HP dynamos. A point which Schwendler emphasised in his report on station lighting was the efficiency and ingenuity of the ‘native mistri’ in mastering a new technology. He especially mentions the engine driver who set right the irregular speed of a dynamo, with the help of a mercury speedometer. ‘The whole trail’, concludes Schwendler, ‘has proved that there is no difficulty whatever in the working of the electric light in this country by trained natives.’ ⁹⁵

Thus, there was no dearth of inquisitiveness in the traditional Bengali society by the end of nineteenth century. Although the electrification project was not launched officially in Calcutta, by that time it was a matter of serious discussion in the intellectual circle of the city. ⁹⁶ Here one incident is worth a mention. An attempt was made to light the Old Howrah Bridge with a private source of electricity. One Jawaharlal Dhar, a self-made electrician, actively participated in the project. He was personally known to Mr Fischer, managing agent of the Indian Electric Light Co. Aware of his technological curiosity, Mr Fischer recruited Dhar at a salary of ` 100. When the electrification of the Eden Garden was carried out by the company, he also worked there. However, due to a minor dispute with one of the German engineers of the project, Dhar left the place. Later on, he joined the Emerald Theatre and produced electricity to light the premises with the help of a steam-driven machine. The major invention of this self-styled engineer was the safety door lock for which he received the patent right from the government. Dey, Sil & Co., the leading electrical firm, became the distributor and Jawaharlal Dhar used to get royalty from this invention. ⁹⁷ Not only had Dhar often talked about his another invention—solar electric machine: ‘…our machine is not a true-copy of any foreign-made machine. Under the sunlight this machine starts producing heat that can be transformed into electricity. We can easily store that and use for numerous purpose—industrial, communication, irrigation, or illumination.’ ⁹⁸

The electrical power was to be the key to a modern industrial economy excited Bengali intellectuals. Fascinated by the marvel of electricity, one interlocutor wrote:

…. In the meanwhile Germany indentifies another technological innovation for their industry. They attempt to reduce the industrial use of coal as much as possible. Electricity now has been replacing coal. They started using electricity to run the railway engine also. Not even that it is the major motive-power in the German industry also. The world is now in a transformative stage—from the power of coal to electricity. The best advantage of industrial application of electricity is that the powerhouse (the place where electricity is generated) can be located in the far of places from the site of the factory—easily up to two hundred miles. ⁹⁹

Electrification was a science-based high technological innovation that demanded not only educated technicians, scientists, enormous amount of capital and industrial capability but also an enlightened public as consumers. It was true for Calcutta also. Although apprehensive in the beginning, the Bengalis not only welcomed electricity but also launched a monthly journal Bijoli on the subject by the third decade of twentieth century. ¹⁰⁰ In an article, the journal succinctly captured the victory of electricity over other forms of power:

…with the path-breaking scientific discoveries the history of human civilization is enriching every time. The invention of steam certainly inaugurated a new age for the human race. But now we have a source of power which is far stronger than steam—this is nothing but electricity. ¹⁰¹

The latest electrical innovations of the day were also featured in the journal. Bhupen Ganguly, an expert in the science of electricity and managing director of Ms Ganguly & Chatterjee Ltd, wrote on ‘air conditioning’:

In the summer season to get rid from the heat we use hand-fan or electric fan. In both the cases we can direct (increase and decrease) the flow of wind. But we cannot control the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere. Many believe that scientific cooling is not good for health. But Indian men of medicine have given clean chit to scientific cooling. The newly established All India Institute of Hygiene & Public Health of Calcutta and several textile factories already adopted cooling through electricity. This sufficiently proves the safety of such method. Air-conditioning is a separate branch of engineering. Here the level of heat, humidity, pressure and flow of wind in our atmosphere can be controlled scientifically. The main composites of an air-conditioning machine are a water pump, a fan and a spray chamber. ¹⁰²

In Calcutta, the entire urbanisation process was initiated by the British out of imperialistic motivations. Hence, the lighting scheme can also be viewed as a part of that infrastructure which was imported into India to facilitate further expansion. Electricity was a source of income to the government in two ways. First, electricity installation and distribution itself was an important revenue generation mechanism for them. Second, import of electrical technology and its associated business by the British companies was another source of income. This can be seen from the simple fact that the Oriental Gas Company, CESC, CTC were all British owned private companies based on London. However, the course of development of technology was also influenced by the people who were at the receiving end. The Calcutta Corporation, which played a constructive role in building the nation state, had contributed in this process to a significant degree. ¹⁰³

The triumph of the Swaraj Party in the municipal elections of 1924 opened the doors of the Calcutta Corporation to the nationalist Indians led by C. R. Das (1870–1925). However, the Corporation possessed neither the financial resources nor the administrative jurisdiction for implementing their full programme. It had no power to do anything in the field of electric and gas supply, which was contracted to British companies. ¹⁰⁴ Despite all these limitations, the Corporation tried to stimulate indigenous industries. The Corporation workshop took up in earnest the manufacture of electric fans, gas mantles, iron pipes, boilers and so on, all of which it had hitherto imported from Britain. ¹⁰⁵ In this venture into swadeshi enterprise, the Corporation attained no striking success, but Indian firms were exhibiting an interest in the new manufactures. Inevitably, European big business in Calcutta was angered by the role of the Corporation. Particularly serious, from the point of view of European big business, was the sharp conflict between the Congress-controlled Calcutta Corporation and the British-incorporated CESC.

From the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement (1930), the Swarajist Corporation had continuously pressurised the CESC, which had a monopoly of electric supply in Calcutta, to reduce the rates of electricity. ¹⁰⁶ In 1930, the Corporation managed to persuade the British company, by a fierce public agitation, to reduce the rate from 3 annas per unit to 2 ½ annas per unit. This did not satisfy the Corporation, which argued that the rate be further reduced, to 2 annas per unit. Further agitation induced the government to reduce the rate to 2 annas per unit. ¹⁰⁷

Towards the end of the 1930s, another kind of opposition began to emerge among the political, business and educated elite communities. This was against the domination of British electrical corporation. Not content with the reduction in the rates on electricity, the Corporation went on to propose an end to the monopoly of electric supply by the CESC. ¹⁰⁸ At the beginning of the Civil Disobedience Movement, a Bengali engineer, B. N. Dey, was appointed as the chief engineer by the Corporation. He immediately drew up a scheme for generation of electricity by the Corporation which emphasised, ‘… if the gas lamps of the city were converted into electric lamps and each burner was replaced by 75 watt electric lamps, Calcutta will get 51 percent better lighting and the net annual saving to the Corporation will be about ` 3,65,000’. ¹⁰⁹ On the basis of Dr Dey’s plan, the Calcutta Corporation submitted to the government, for its sanction, an electricity scheme under which the Corporation would produce its own electricity, at rates lower than those charged by the British company. ¹¹⁰

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 3

Source: The Calcutta Municipal Gazette, Vol. XV (21), 30 April, 1932.

While the government maintained stony silence on the scheme, the Corporation continued to make energetic preparations for its implementation. The mouthpiece of the Corporation reported,

A beginning has already been made by the installation of two powerful electric generations in two of the principal pumping stations of the city. When the connecting cables have all been laid the electricity thus rendered available for distribution will be used for different purposes—driving pumps, lighting streets, lighting the Stuart Hogg Market, the Central Municipal Office and other places. ¹¹¹

The government had been sitting tight over Dr Dey’s scheme, as it affected the vested interests of British capital. Not even that, when in 1938 the Calcutta Corporation erected a substation at the Stuart Hogg Market to supply electricity to portion of the Central Municipal Office, an angry CESC sent a legal notice to them termed the incident as ‘a breach of the contract’ and wanted to even discontinue their service to the entire building. ¹¹²

The CESC was perhaps furious over the fact that the Calcutta Corporation was sympathetic on the agitation of the workers of the Supply Company which surfaced around 1937 and extended its wholehearted support to it. ¹¹³ The first session of the All India Electric Supply Workers’ Conference at the Mohammed Ali Park was presided over by A. K. M. Zakarian, the then mayor of the Calcutta Corporation. ¹¹⁴ The Corporation even exerted continuous pressure on the Government of Bengal for the option to purchase the CTC and CESC on the expiry of their license in 1938. However, that did not materialise at that point of time. Rajat Ray demonstrates the change in the balance of forces in the arena of municipal politics as the vastly improved position of the CESC vis-à-vis the Calcutta Corporation, after the new Muslim ministry came into power in 1937, on the basis of the Government of India Act of 1935. ¹¹⁵ The Fazlul Huq ministry, supported by the European block in the Legislative Assembly, proved the most effective guarantee of those vested foreign interests which had so long under pressure from the Swarajist Corporation.

Science & Culture, a leading journal, once remarked:

Almost every civilized country in the world has come to regard the supply of electricity as a public utility concern and has taken steps for full development of its power resources, for adequate control of the production of electrical energy and for ensuring the public of a cheap supply and protecting them from profiteering and exploitation. ¹¹⁶

However, Calcutta was perhaps an exception and the result was obvious: ‘The rate at Calcutta was about eight times greater than that at London…’. The private supply companies in India enjoyed several special privileges over their counterparts in England. Even CESC had the monopoly in this sector. Then also the rate of electricity was so high at Calcutta. Once the journal identified cheap and abundant power supply as utmost important considering the industrial efficiency of a nation entirely depended upon it. The power resources should be regarded as national assets and it further recognised that the development of cheap and abundant power was a prime duty of the state. ¹¹⁷ The logical culmination of such demands was nationalising the power sector.

The demand for nationalisation was further accelerated by the National Planning Committee (NPC), appointed under the chairmanship of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1938. The Sub-Committee, Power & Fuel, recognised that a well-organised and well-distributed national system of generation and distribution of electrical power could be met, only if the entire enterprise of production as well as the supply of this energy was made a public utility concern. The interim report of the Sub-Committee was presented by Meghnad Saha, the great Indian astrophysicist and chairman of the Sub-Committee, on 12 May 1940. The following is an extract from the resolutions:

We agree with the view that the rates for energy in India are unduly high, and power has been very adequately developed, and this has stood in the way of promotion of industries, particularly electro-chemical and electro-thermal ones … the State should develop a definite National Power and Fuel Policy. As the generation and distribution of electricity is a public utility of great importance, the State should ultimately own it and the control and management of it should be exercised by the Electricity Boards. In order to implement the National Policy on Power, it is necessary to create Provincial Electricity Boards, and one Central Electricity Board. The Hydro-electric Survey of India should be an all-India body … We favour a policy of electrification of railways. ¹¹⁸

Conclusion

Since electricity’s invention in the late nineteenth century, the spread of electric utilities has come to signify the advance of modernity. The representation of electricity in colonial Calcutta was no different. What makes the question of electricity so interesting is the wide variety of uses it offered to the society. An agent of social change and industrial development, electricity thus provides a deeper understanding of modern technology in a traditional society. This article is therefore a synthesis of two different aspects of technology and society. First, it is concerned with the material practice of technology—how people responded to new technologies and how the technologies themselves were made to fit into the local physical environment. Second, it looks into the more abstract role of ideas, cultural beliefs and the contributions of technology towards a growing sense of nationalism and identity. However, the literature often describes the technological modernity as a single standard story of advancing—from the cultural and economic domain of the West, the birthplace of modern technology, towards the non-Western world through the agencies of colonial regimes or the distributive networks of international business organisations.

But this does not seem to be the only model of technological modernity. Scholars generally use the social construction theory to describe the complex technological system, such as electricity. While adopting this theory, it is also necessary to identify issues that arise from the distinctive kind of non-Western context. Here probably Arnold rightly argues the primary stage of social construction of various modern technologies occurred in the industrialised West and then they underwent a second stage of socialisation in the colonial context. ¹¹⁹ The basic form might remain the same, but as various electric innovations were spread from the West to ‘native’ elites and indigenous masses, the cultural significance of these electrical utilities might change. After appropriating this new knowledge, many enterprising Indians came up with their own models, competed successfully with their Western counterpart and demanded better avenues to further the cause of industrialisation. For a quick example, the Bengal Lamp, specialising in the production of electric bulbs, was the brainchild of three Bengali brothers. As the electric blubs were slowly becoming indispensible among the growing middle class, taking the advantage they were instrumental in ushering a new era in the electric bulb manufacturing industry of the country. At the same time, they were closely associated with Jadavpur Engineering College, which is one of the preferred destinations of the post-secondary Indian students even today. The legacy continues even now: on 15 October 2014, the following item appeared in The Times of India, under the headline ‘Residential Apartment Turns Self-Reliant, Supplies Extra Power to CESC’:

Scrapping of coal blocks by Supreme Court may have sown the fear of a power tariff rise among consumers, but it hardly makes any difference for those residing at SIRSA, the 10-storied residential apartment for officials of the Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute (CSIR). They depend neither on thermal power nor any power utility. Thanks to grid-connected solar power panels installed on the roof, the complex generates its own power. In fact, they even supply power, albeit in small scale, to CESC. ¹²⁰

The above-mentioned institute, established just after independence (1947) to strengthen academia–industry linkages, is adjacent to Jadavpur Engineering College, Kolkata.