IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - September/October 2020 - 94

create marshes in the natural depression. Whenever there was a steady rainfall for a couple of days, from the beginning of spring to the end of summer,
there was a constant fear of floods. The
water would come pouring down from
the mountains into the valley and could
not quickly get out through the gorge,
which remained clogged with boulders
a few miles from Baramulla. Eventually, Lake Wular, a large natural settling
tank upstream, would fill above its
brim and result in flooding that would
destroy crops and level homes. The removal of the boulders below Baramulla
and deepening the Jhelum up to Lake

Wular to prevent floods was the main
objective of the dredging scheme. The
Jhelum River outlet through which the
water escaped to the plains was to be
widened, which would involve dredging 16 ft deep for roughly 18 mi, with
4 mi through rocky ground. Another
important objective was reclaiming
thousands of acres of useless and unhealthy marshes, which were prevalent.
The widening of the exit would lower
the level of Lake Wular by 14 ft and
thus reclaim some 90,000 acres of fertile land. Dredging would also improve
the navigation capacity of the Jhelum
River. It was expected that the dredg-

figure 5. The dipper dredge Himalaya. (From S. Orling, "The Jhelum power
installation, part II," GE Review, vol. 12, no. 8, p. 356, Aug. 1909.)

figure 6. The hydraulic dredge Jammu (from S. Orling, "The Jhelum power installation, part II," GE Review, vol. 12, no. 8, p. 359, Aug. 1909). (Photo courtesy of
miSci-Museum of Innovation and Science, Schenectady, NY; used with permission.)
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ing work as envisaged would be completed in early 1915.
To accomplish the project, an award
for the entire dredging plant, consisting
of two hydraulic dredges, two derrick
dredges, and one dipper dredge, was
given to Bucyrus, South Milwaukee,
Wisconsin (Figures 5 and 6). General Electric supplied the accompanying
electric motors and equipment for
the two 60-kV floating substations of
600-kW and 1,200-kW capacity. The
floating substations comprised 200-kW,
single-phase step-down transformers
with switching equipment; wall bushings; and three-phase, 2,300-V outgoing lines (Figures 7 and 8) Floating
substations become necessary as the
dredging had to cover distances over
20 mi. The various parts from which
the dredging fleet was constructed
had to be conveyed with great difficulty across the mountainous cart
road. The woodwork for the dredges
was completed on site near Baramulla. On 27 September 1907, at Baramulla, the biggest dipper dredge ever
powered by electricity was launched
with pomp and circumstance in the
presence of Maharaja. The glidingdown of the dredge was a spectacular
sight to the locals who had assembled
there. It accomplished the first step
in the great electrical scheme undertaken by Kashmir State: the dredging operations near Baramulla would
use electricity generated from the
Jhelum River.
In under a year later, on the morning of 22 September 1908, all the state
dignitaries, after inaugurating the
Mohra power installation, assembled at
Baramulla to witness the operation of a
large dredging fleet operated by electric
power. It was an unprecedented sight in
the annals of Kashmir and the subcontinent. The Maharaja elected to commence the operation of the large hydraulic dredge Jammu (Figure 6). When he
closed a switch, the cutter head lowered,
and the main pump went into operation.
A 300-ft delivery pipe immediately began to discharge a vast stream of mud,
sand, and water onto the left bank of the
Jhelum. The hydraulic dredges Jammu
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