Public Works, India: 1911
This article was written around 1911 when conditions were Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles |
Extracted from:
Encyclopaedia of India
1911.
No further details are available about this book, except that it was sponsored in some way by the (British-run) Government of India.
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Public Works, 1911: India
Public works in India fall under three categories - railways, irrigation, and roads and buildings. The railways are managed in various ways, the other two classes of works are carried out through the agency of separate departments in Madras and Bombay, and of officers of the government of India public works department, either under local or central control, in other provinces.
Railways in India serve different purposes - the ordinary purpose of trade and passenger communication, and also the Railays . special purposes of the safeguarding the internal and w external peace of the country, and of protecting special districts against famine by facilitating the movement of grain. For this reason the interest on capital expended on all the lines cannot be judged by a purely commercial standard. They are administered in three separate ways - as guaranteed, state or assisted lines. In the early days of railway enterprise the agency of private companies guaranteed by the state was exclusively employed, and nearly all the great trunk lines were made under this system, but the leases of the last three of these lines, the Great Indian Peninsula, the Bombay Baroda and Central India, and the Madras companies, fell in respectively in 'goo, 1905 and 1907. In 1870 a new policy of railway development by the direct agency of the state was inaugurated; and in 1880 the system of encouraging private enterprise by state assistance was again resorted to. Both agencies are now employed side by side. The administration of railways was formerly under a secretary in the public works department; but since 5905 it has been placed in charge of a railway board, consisting of a president and two members, which is connected with, though not subordinate to, the department of commerce and industry.
In 1908 the total length of railways open in India was 30,578, m., which carried 330 million passengers and 64 million tons of goods, and yielded a net profit exceeding 4 Facilities for irrigation (q.v.) vary widely, and irrigation works differ both in extent and in character. The main distinction. arises from the fact that the rivers of northern India are fed by the Himalayan snows, and, therefore, afford a supply of water which surpasses in constancy and volume any of the rivers of the south. In Bombay and Madras almost all the irrigation systems, except in the deltas of the chief rivers, are dependent on reservoirs or " tanks," which collect the rainfall of the adjacent hills. In Sind and the Punjab there are many canals which act merely as distributaries of the overflow of the great rivers at the time of inundation; but where the utility of the canals has been increased by permanent headworks the supply of water is perennial and practically inexhaustible, thus contrasting favourably with the less certain protection given by tanks. The Irrigation Commission of 1901 advised an expenditure of 30 millions sterling, spread over a term of twenty years, and irrigating 62 million acres in addition to the 47 millions already irrigated at that time; but it was estimated that that programme would practically exhaust the irrigable land in India, and that some of the later works would be merely protective against the danger of famine, and would not be financially productive.
In addition to the provision and maintenance of roads and the construction of public buildings, the department of public works also provides all works of a public nature, such as water-supply, sanitation, embankments, lighthouses, ferries and bridges, and which require technical skill. Road-making is an ordinary roads. form of relief work in times of famine. In the famine of 1896-1897, for instance, 579 m. of new roads were made in the Central Provinces alone, and 819 m. were repaired. One of the finest roads in the world is the Grand Trunk Road which stretches across India from Calcutta to Peshawar, and which is metalled most of the way with kankar, a hard limestone outgrowth. The great buildings of ancient India are described under the names of the different cities which contain them.
The post-office
The post-office of India is under the control of a director-general, in subordination to the department of commerce and industry; and this Post officer has under him a postmaster-general or deputy post master-general in each province. In 1906 the district post, Office. originally provided for local convenience and maintained by a local cess, was amalgamated with the imperial post. The mileage over which mails are carried by railway has been constantly increasing with the development of the railway system, but a far larger number are still carried by runners and boats. The total number of letters, &c., carried by the post exceeds 800 millions, and the service yields a small profit to the state. In connexion with the post-office there are inland money order and savings-bank businesses; and in addition the value-payable system, by which the post-office undertakes to recover from the addressee the value of an article sent by post and to remit the amount to the sender, has found great popularity.
Indo European telegraph wire
Excluding the Indo European telegraph wire, the whole telegraph system of India forms an imperial charge, administered through a director-general. The total length of line is about 69,000 m., and the net profits of the service approximately pay for new new expenditure on capital account. graphs. Telegraphic communication with Europe is maintained by the cable of the Eastern Telegraph Company via Aden, and by the IndoEuropean system, of which the eastern portion from Teheran and Fao to Karachi belongs to the government of India. The administration of the Indo-European department is in London under the direct control of the secretary of state. The system comprises two sections. The first, called the Persian Gulf section, runs from Karachi to Bushire, from Jask to Muscat, and from Bushire to Fao, where a connexion is made with the Ottoman government line. It includes also the Makran coast lines, running from Jask to Guadur, and thence to Karachi. The second section, known as the Persian section, consists of land lines running from Bushire to Teheran. These land lines, as well as the Makran coast lines, are worked under a treaty with the Persian government. A connexion for extending the system through Persia was signed in 1901, the route to be followed being from Kashan near Teheran to the Baluchistan frontier via Yezd and Kerman.
