CITY LIGHTS

CITY LIGHTS
Today when Bangaloreans are in the throes of power shutdowns, it may be just ironical to note that the city was the first to be electrified in the country. Bansy Kalappa brings to light the early exercises in electrification

The Times of India


Over a hundred years ago, on a pleasant evening — August 5, 1905, to be precise — there was expectation in the air as hundreds of Bangaloreans converged at the city’s commercial hub, City Market, to watch the spectacle of the century — electric streetlights. Around 5 pm, John Hewitt, a British officer, switched them on and the blinding glow of the lamps was received with cheer and applause.
History was written as Bangalore became the first city in the country to be electrified. For years before that, a team of lamplighters would roam the main avenues filling kerosene lamps, trimming the wicks and cleaning the chimneys before lighting them. Often, strong winds would blow out the lamps.
The cost of the electrification exercise was about Rs 60 lakh, an enormous sum those days, of which Rs 51 lakh was spent on erecting a power generation plant at Shivanasamudra and the rest on setting up power stations, transformers and streetlights.
Shivanasamudra had been set up in June 1902 with the help of General Electric to supply power to Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) and since Bangalore (92 km away) was along the way, it happened to be the first city to be electrified. Mysore followed suit in 1907.
The credit for the pioneering effort went to A C G Labineer and A Machuchin, a chief engineer who saw the need for bringing power to Bangalore. He said, “Gold mining in KGF will not last for long. Bangalore has to be electrified to help it develop industries. Excess power generated at Shivanasamudra could be diverted to Bangalore. Presently, Bangalore does not need more than 300 HP.” (Today the city consumes 21 lakh HP (1600 MW) of power, with a demand percentage increase of 15-20 per cent.)
The location for the power plant at Shivanasamudra, where the Cauvery flows, was chosen after careful study. Work started there in August 1900. The machines came from General Electric. J J Hunter led the team monitoring the carting of this expensive equipment to the site from Maddur — big groups of workers hauled them on bullock carts and elephants because there was no motorable road yet.
Power was first exclusively used in Bangalore for streetlights, government establishments, factories and institutions. For domestic consumers, the cost was quite prohibitive — the expenses for about 40 watts of power would be a flat rate of Rs 1 per month. The first domestic users were V Krishnaiah and Janakiram Mudaliar. Even the famous 18 offices of Attara Kacheri (now housing the Karnataka high court) received power only in 1915. And Bangalore Cantonment, where the British Army was stationed, got electricity in June 1908 said Director KPTCL Chandre Gowda.
The first power station called the M Station came up near Fort area (near Victoria Hospital) and had a capacity of two transformers of 450 KVA transformers each, said former KEB Chairman B G Rudrappa. Today, even the smallest station would have about 63,000 KVA. Soon an A Station was started at Anand Rao Circle followed by a B Station on South Parade Road, now called M G Road. The department that looked after power was the Government of Mysore Electric Department. Its first chief engineer was Henry Parker Gibbs.
Another piece of statistics worth noting is that Binny Mills was among the largest consumers in 1912, using 950 HP of power. Today, buildings housing IT companies use 10 times that quantity.
POWER POINTS
New York and London had been electrified in the 1880s — only two decades earlier than Bangalore Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, set up research facility in electricity in 1915 The first electrical engineering department in Asia was set up at the Government College of Engineering, now called the University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, in 1921 Power used for Municipality, Woollen Mills, Jewel filters, Tata Institute ( IISc), private lighting consumers.