Gódávari/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION
Roads—Their length and condition—Quarries— Maintenance, establishment and allotments—Bridges—Ferries. Water Carriage—The rivers—Upper Godavari project—Navigable canals; their history—Expenditure and traffic—Nature of traffic—Conflicting interests of irrigation and navigation. Madras Railway. Accommodation for travellers—Bungalows—Chattrams.
There are just under 850 miles of road in the Godavari district, most of which are shaded by fine avenues. Of these, 580 miles are metalled or gravelled, chiefly the former. The long lead from the quarries which has in most cases to be paid for, makes it the best economy to carry the best material available, and latterly gravel has for that reason been discarded. The rest of the roads are repaired with earth and sand. Nearly four-fifths of these earth roads are in the Agency divisions of Polavaram and Bhadrachalam, the former of which possesses less than thirty, and the latter only six, miles of metalled road. On a good metalled road a cart will carry 1,500 lb. at about two miles an hour; on an earth road the load is about 1,000 lb. and the distance traversed in an hour about one and a half miles. The metalled roads in the uplands are generally good, and so are some of those in the delta; but the latter have great difficulties to contend with. They have usually to be made on a rich alluvial soil saturated by irrigation water for many months in the year, and the lead for metal is nearly always long, and in some cases amounts to as many as 40 miles. The numerous navigable canals enable this metal to be transported at less cost than usual, but it often has to be carted by road for four, five and even six miles from the canal-side depots to the places where it is required. Moreover, floods occasionally submerge the country and do a great deal of damage, and against these it is impossible to provide entirely except at enormous expense. Finally the material available is not of the best, being only laterite of fair quality.
The metal used in the delta is obtained from the laterite quarries of Kadayam and Samalkot. The uplands are as well supplied with quarries as most other districts, and some of those recently opened yield very good metal. Ordinarily the only material available is laterite and sandstone of poor quality. On the earth roads a hard surface crust is made by mixing sand and earth with water and then tamping the mixture with rammers. On the metalled roads the consolidation is done by the District Board's two six-ton steam rollers or by hand rollers of from two to three tons. Material is supplied, and generally spread, by contract, but the latter work is not popular and is only taken up as a necessary adjunct of a contract to supply. Petty repairs are done departmentally. Road maistries are posted to every sixteen miles of road and daily labour is obtained when necessary. Gang coolies are not employed. Avenue coolies are entertained to tend the nurseries and the young trees by the road-sides. The superior establishment consists of the District Board Engineer, two Assistant Engineers, five overseers and nine sub-overseers.
The usual grant for the maintenance of the roads is some Rs. 85,000. The minimum and maximum allotments per mile are Rs. 50 and Rs. 300 respectively; and the average for metalled roads is about Rs. 110. The above figures include Bhadráchalam; but that taluk has since been excluded from the operation of the Local Boards Act, and in future its roads will be managed by the Divisional Officer at Bhadráchalam.
In the delta there are few bridges. This fact, and the reason for it, are referred to as follows by Mr. Walch1[1] : —
'There is probably no artificial irrigation and navigation system, except perhaps the neighbouring one of the Kistna, in which the provision of bridges per mile of canal and channel is so small as in the Gódávari delta.2[2] This has arisen from the fact that when the works were commenced, and for long after, there was not a single made road in the delta, and the people were accustomed to wade through the streams and water-courses which crossed their path-ways, or when the water was too deep for wading to use dug-outs or rafts . . . . Bridges have however been provided over the tailbays of almost all the locks, and of late years a few have been constructed at other places at the expense, or partly so, of local funds.'
Matters have been considerably improved recently. In the delta, on the main roads, bridges have now been built over all waterways except the actual branches of the Gódávari. The minor roads, however, have received much less attention.
Outside the delta, also, some fine bridges have been built in recent years. Of these, that at Yerravaram, which carries Bridges. the great northern trunk-road over the Yeléru river, was constructed by the late Mr. P. H. Brown, M.I.C.E., District Board Engineer,1[3] and was opened for traffic in 1887. It consists of sixteen spans of 32 feet with segmental brick arches on first-class coursed rubble piers and abutments. The bridge over the Tuni river at Tuni, on the same road and at the north-eastern extremity of the district, has ten spans of 30 feet. It was built over 30 years ago by the Public Works department. A fine bascule bridge crosses the Gódávari at Coringa. It is an iron construction 250 feet long with a 50-foot drawbridge in the middle, and is built on solid iron piles four to five inches in diameter and screwed down to from 30 to 45 feet below mean sea level. This also was designed and erected (in 1901) by Mr, Brown. The drawbridge consists of two bascules which when raised afford an opening of 50 feet for sailing ships. There has been no difficulty in passing through it the largest ships which can enter the river, which run up to 500 to 600 tons. As originally constructed, it took eight men to open and close the bascules, but recent improvements designed and carried out by the present District Board Engineer Mr. C. J. Lowry, enable each span to be easily opened and closed by one man. The flooring is of steel trough plates except over the drawbridge, which is floored with teak.
The only bridge across the Gódávari is that at Rajahmundry which carries the Madras Railway and is described below. Foot passengers are allowed to cross it. There is no separate footway, but it is floored and provided with a handrail, and there are refuges on every pier where people can wait for a train to pass.
The deficiency of bridges both over the Gódávari and over the many channels in the delta is supplied by ferries. The three steam ferry-boats which at present ply on the Gódávari are referred to below. Besides these there are 34 ferries under the control of the local boards, and eight more in the Bhadráchalam taluk. The local fund ferries are equipped with boats constructed by the local boards or by the Public Works department; the former contributing half the cost in the case of all natural waterways. Of these boats, fourteen are first-class, and the same number second-class, iron ballacuts.2[4] A ballacut is a platform with hand-rails laid on a broad-beamed punt, and is ordinarily of sufficient length and breadth to take a cart and its bullocks. The bigger river ferry-boats are large flats which will hold three or four carts with their bullocks. Long boats are used at some of the lesser ferries, and rafts laid on hollowed-out palmyra trunks (called sangadis) at a few insignificant ones. The round boats made of hides stretched over a bamboo framework which are used on some of the rivers of the Presidency (e.g., the Tungabhadra, Cauvery and Bhaváni) are not employed in this district. Across narrow waterways the boats are propelled by poles, or, more rarely, are pulled across with the help of a rope tied from bank to bank. For crossing the wider and deeper channels, oars or (as sometimes on the Gódávari itself) sails are used.
Thirty-four of the local fund ferries are leased out by auction by the taluk boards concerned to contractors, who are allowed to charge certain fixed fees. In 1904-05 the sums paid for the right to work these ferries amounted in round figures to Rs. 23,300. The eight ferries of Bhadráchalam fetched some Rs. 700 in the same year. The ferry across the Vasishta Gódávari at Kótipalli was leased for Rs. 4,020 and that across the Vainatéyam at Bódasakurru for Rs. 2,300. All the steam ferries were sold for large amounts.
All the other local fund ferries are allowed to be used by the public free of charge. They are managed by the villagers, who arrange for some one to work each of them and remunerate him themselves. For some of them the boat or ballacut is supplied by the District Board, and in that case the village headman is held responsible for its proper treatment.
The Gódávari river is largely used as a waterway. The three steam ferry-boats mentioned above do much passenger traffic. One of them, a stern-wheel boat with compound engines, plies between Rájavólu (Rázóle) and Narasapur; another, a large boat with an upper deck, of the usual river-steamer type, travels between Rajahmundry, Dowlaishweram, Bobbarlanka, Vijésvaram and Kovvúr; and the third, another stern-wheeler, touches at all the ferry stations on both sides of the Gódávari between Rajahmundry and Pólavaram and has recently been run experimentally as far up as Kunnavaram, to provide communication with Bhadráchalam1[5] These boats are worked by crews paid by the District Board, but are generally managed by contractors who find the fuel, etc., take the passengers' fees, and pay rent to the District Board. They are inspected by the District Board Engineer from time to time to ensure that they are maintained in a safe and proper condition. The Public Works department has one or two steamers at Dowlaishweram which are used by officials for inspections or journeys on the river.
A great deal of goods and passenger traffic is also carried on the river in native sailing-boats. These are generally 'dhónis,' which run up to 35 tons capacity. They go up by the Dummagúdem canal referred to below when there is enough water in the river and the canal is open (usually from June to January), and travel a long way above Dummagúdem. Going up stream they sail when the wind is favourable, and, when it is not, pole or, when possible, tow. Coming down stream they either sail or row, or drift with the current, rowing just enough to keep on steerage way. Rafts of timber (see below) come down the Upper Gódávari from December to May.
The project of opening up the navigation of the Upper Gódávari was first urged on the attention of Government in 1851. A vast amount of money was expended on it; but it was eventually pronounced too expensive to be remunerative, and was abandoned.
Sir Arthur Cotton, a vigorous advocate and promoter of water carriage, was the first to broach the subject. He hoped that it might be possible to provide 'still-water steam navigation from the sea to Berar,' which would be, he said, 'the cheapest line of communication in the world.' It was decided in 1853 to investigate the project; and careful and repeated examinations of the river were carried out.1[6] The great difficulty to be overcome was the existence of three remarkable barriers of rock, forming rapids which are only navigable during floods. The first of these, which is nine miles long, begins near Dummagúdem, at a distance of 143 miles from the sea; the second at Enchampalli, just below the junction with the Indrávati and 220 miles from the river's mouth; and the third, called the Dewalamurry barrier, at a point 310 miles from the sea. These barriers excepted, it was estimated that there was sufficient water in the river during nine months in the year for steamers drawing from two to four feet of water, according to the state of the river. The fall of the river is moderate; and during half the year the current was estimated to be only a mile and a half per hour, and rarely to rise above three miles an hour. It was proposed to evade the obstruction caused by the barriers by cutting canals provided with locks along the side of the river past the . impassable points.
The project was warmly accepted by Government, arid, on their strong recommendation, was sanctioned by the Court of Directors. It was however never completed. The estimated cost of the whole scheme, which was designed to render the river navigable for 473 miles above the anicut for four or five months of the year, and to open out to traffic 300 miles of its tributaries, was £292,000. Up to 1861 £20,000 had been laid out in preliminary surveys, etc. In 1863, when Sir Richard Temple inspected the works, no less than £700,000 had been spent. He recommended that the works at the first and second barriers and up to the foot of the third barrier should be proceeded with at an estimated cost of £255,000, so that navigation might be opened so far; but in October 1871, at the request of the Government of India, the whole scheme was abandoned on the ground that it involved an expenditure which did not give promise of any adequate return.1[7]
It has never been revived. There is a fine lock and anicut at Dummagúdem and a canal (two miles in length) which is still used. Cargo boats can as a rule pass through it between June and January, and small boats throughout the year, except when it is closed for repairs. At the second barrier at Enchampalli, are a partly-completed anicut and the remains of unfinished locks and excavations. The Dummagúdem works were damaged in the flood of 1900, and estimates, amounting to Rs. 1,26,800, for repairing them were sanctioned in 1905 and are now being carried out. It would be a great help to navigation if the canal there could be carried down to Bhadráchalam; but the work would be difficult and costly, as the excavation would be largely in solid rock.
When the Godavari anicut was being built, it was proposed that the canals taking off from it should be so constructed that they would serve tor navigation as well as irrigation. Mr. Walch writes as follows on the subject2[8]: —
"Even when sending in his first general estimate with his second report3[9] Major Cotton had said that one of the results to be expected from the works which he contemplated would be that 'a complete system of internal navigation intersecting the whole delta would be Water established throughout the year.' And besides the 'head-locks' the estimate included a provision of one lakh for 'sluices, locks, and other small masonry works.' The smallness of this provision, which could not have been intended for more than half-a-dozen1[10] or so of even the small and inexpensive locks originally proposed, shows that there was but a very imperfect perception on the part of Major Cotton himself of what would be required to make the main irrigation arteries of the system into really efficient lines of communication. It is not therefore to be wondered at that when the detailed estimates for the various canals came in with large sums set down for locks and special arrangements for navigation, the Government should have regarded the provisions for that purpose as almost a new development of the original intentions to which sanction had been given. The Governor of the day, Sir Henry Pottinger, even went so far as to 'say I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that this is an entirely novel scheme which, so far as I recollect, had no existence in the original project for an anicut across the Gódávari.'
"But Colonel Cotton was determined that his chief canals should be made navigable ..... and so he went on with steady insistence, loyally backed up by the officers who followed him on the delta works, till at last opposition to his views on the subject was broken down, and there are now in the Gódávari system alone nearly 500 miles of canals which, besides carrying water for irrigation, are excellent lines of communication. Nor is this all; from the Gódávari system, navigation can at three places pass into the Kistna system with its 300 miles of navigable canals, and from it again into the Buckingham Canal, which runs along the coast for 196 miles from the end of the Kistna system to Madras, and for 65 miles further south. From Cocanada to the south end of the Buckingham Canal the length of canal navigation is 450 miles.
"There cannot be the slightest doubt that the provision for cheap carriage, not only in and about the district itself but also to the neighbouring districts and to an excellent seaport, contributed largely to the rapidity with which the Gódávari irrigation developed and the district sprang into prosperity. In this way the cost of the works specially required for navigation has been repaid over and over again, quite irrespective of the direct returns from boat licenses, tolls and so on."
The development of canal traffic has indeed been enormous. Sir Arthur Cotton wrote in 1852, 'I should not be surprised if, after a few years, the district be well managed and the canals kept in good order, the traffic were to average 50 tons a day.' The traffic in 1893-94 amounted to 393,725 tons, or over 1,000 tons a day; and by 1902-03 it had risen to 576,643 tons, or nearly 1,680 tons a day, that is, more than 33 times as much as that anticipated by the founder of the canal system.
It was not till 1863 that tolls were levied for the use of the canals. Nowadays a considerable annual income is derived from them. The total receipts in 1902-03 1[11] were Rs. 85,600 and the total maintenance charges Rs. 63,900, leaving a net profit of Rs. 21,700. A navigation establishment (chiefly lock superintendents) costing Rs. 448 per mensem is kept up for the central and eastern deltas belonging to this district. In 1902-03 fees were paid on 458,000 tons of displacement; and cargoes worth 230 lakhs and over 345,000 passengers were transported on the canals. Timber rafts with a displacement of nearly 119,000 tons also used these waterways.
The passenger traffic is carried in what are called rádhári boats, long covered craft holding from 40 to 70 passengers and entirely owned and directed by private enterprise. They are towed by regular staffs of coolies paid monthly wages and posted at stages of from ten to twelve miles in length. These boats also carry produce, and are patronized for this purpose when time is an object, as their pace averages three miles an hour. They all start from Rajahmundry or Dowlaishweram, and they constitute a regular boat service.
The cargo boats are numerous and range from 7 to 40 tons displacement. They all carry sails. Their charges for cargo are about four pies a ton a mile on the average. They are worked by crews of two or three men and one or two small boys, who tow, pole, or row the boats as convenient. On still water they can sail five miles an hour. Otherwise their pace is about three miles an hour down stream and one and a half up stream.
The timber rafts consist mostly of logs and bamboos from the forests of the Upper Gódávari, which are lashed together and floated down between December and May for export. Bamboos come down in December, but timber not until January. Of a total transported tonnage of 118,632 tons, only 418 tons were taken up stream.
The canals are used to a small extent by house-boats. These are nearly all Government boats employed by officials, but there are one or two private house-boats also. The only Steamers on the canals at present are the inspection boats of the Public Works department. Mr. Walch1[12] says that: —
'The introduction of steam power for the transportation of freight along the canals has often been considered, and it has to some extent been tried without success. It cannot compete with manual labour unless that becomes far less plentiful and cheap than it now is, and unless canals along the chief lines of communication be maintained along their whole lengths and at all points to a depth greater than is now the case. That steam or perhaps electricity will eventually supersede towing coolies on the Gódávari canals is most probable, but this will not be for many a long day.'
The combination of irrigation and navigation in these canals is not entirely without its drawbacks. Their requirements are necessarily to some extent conflicting.
'For irrigation, large quantities of water and consequently of silt have to be taken into a canal, and therefore the slope of the surface must be considerable; for navigation the less water taken into the canal the better, and its surface should have no slope. For irrigation, there are times when the canal should be kept low so that large quantities of water may not have to be passed into the drainages when they are already filled by rain-water; for navigation the canal should always be kept up to its full level. For irrigation, even when the river or other source of supply is low, it is often necessary to go on letting as much water as possible out of the canal to supply crops, thereby reducing the level and the depth in the canal, especially at its end; for navigation at such times the water should be kept in the canal so as to maintain as nearly as possible its full depth.'
These difficulties have been experienced in the Gódávari system. On the Ellore canal, which is the through line of communication to the Kistna river system, the silting was found to impede traffic, and the necessity of keeping enough water in the canal for navigation caused much tempting extension of irrigation to be abandoned. These facts were adduced in 1888 as arguments for the necessity of lightening that canal of some of its traffic and in support of a proposal for a railway between the Kistna and Gódávari rivers — a proposal which has since developed into the North-east line of the Madras Railway. As far as the present district is concerned, navigation is always subordinated to irrigation, and though every attempt is made to keep the canals full, navigation has to take its chance when water is scarce.
The only railway which traverses the district is that which was originally called the East Coast Railway but is now known officially as the North-east line of the Madras Railway. It enters the district from the south at Rajahmundry over a fine bridge across the Gódávari, and, skirting the north- western edge of the delta, finally runs from Samalkot parallel with the coast till it passes out of the district at Tuni. From Samalkot a branch runs to Cocanada, the inhabitants of which have always protested vigorously against the chief commercial centre on the section being thus left off the main line. The bridge over the Gódávari at Rajahmundry is one of the finest in the Presidency. It is built of steel girders laid on masonry piers which are sunk from 48 to as much as 100 feet below low water level and stand over 44 feet above that level. It has a total length of no less than 9,000 feet, or over 1½ miles, between abutments, and consists of 56 spans of 150 feet each. It was opened to goods traffic in 1900. The railway was opened from Rajahmundry to Waltair (in the Vizagapatam district) in 1893 and the Cocanada branch in the same year.
In 1904 there were altogether IIO travellers' bungalows in the district, of which 79 were maintained from local funds, 21 by the Forest department, and ten by the Public Works department. A detailed list is given in the separate Appendix. Of the local fund bungalows, nine were in Bhadráchalam taluk, and, since the Local Boards Act has been recently withdrawn from operation in that tract, are now managed by the Revenue department. Those maintained by the Forest department are designed primarily for the use of its own officers, but are also available for private individuals on payment of fees. Nineteen of them are in Bhadráchalam. That taluk contains 29 rest-houses in all, and Chódavaram eleven. These buildings are necessarily numerous in the Agency, where only short marches are possible and tents can only be carried with difficulty. Tuni and Pithápuram divisions only contain three and four bungalows respectively. The accommodation in the travellers' bungalows ranges from furnished and terraced buildings to empty thatched sheds, the latter predominating. With a few exceptions, the local fund bungalows are of an inferior type.
There are eight endowed chattrams under the management of the local boards, six of which have considerable incomes. Their total annual revenues are some Rs. 18,000. They were all bequeathed by private individuals to the taluk boards. The largest is the Nallacheruvu choultry in Peddápuram taluk, the income of which is Rs. 5,500. There, and at two other large institutions at Peddápuram and Kottipudi, people of all castes are fed. At two other considerable chattrams Bráhmans are fed. Three insignificant choultries are maintained by the municipality at Rajahmundry.
Private chattrams appear to exist in large numbers1[13] in this district, and they are much less exclusively devoted to the needs of Bráhmans than is the case in some places. Indeed at several of them food (though not accommodation) is provided even for Málas. At many of them all Súdra castes are fed. Most of them, it seems, are supported by private liberality without regular endowments. Some are of a considerable size. Those at Cocanada (maintained by a Kómati), Samalkot (by a rich Reddi merchant), Pithápuram (by the zamindar) and Kótipalli (by the Pólavaram proprietor) are worthy of particular mention. The largest of all is supported by a Kómati at Rajahmundry. Another large one in that town, called the chanda('subscription') choultry, is kept up by subscriptions from the local merchants, who set aside a percentage of their daily profits for the purpose.
- ↑ 1 The Engineering works of the Gódávari Delta (Madras, 1896), p. 135.
- ↑ 2 A very remarkable contrast is presented by the Tanjore delta, where fine bridges are very plentiful.
- ↑ 1 To this officer, who was the first District Board Engineer and held that post from 1880 to 1901, the district owes the construction of most of its roads and of many minor bridges, as well as the planting of miles of fine avenues. He also erected the building now occupied by the branch of the Bank of Madras and St.Thomas' Church in Cocanada, as well as a number of other public buildings,
- ↑ 2 Telugu balla, a plank and kattu, to tie; hence 'a platform.'
- ↑ 1 These are Kovvúr, Arikarevala, Kumáradévam, Tállapúdi, Sitánagaram and Gútála,
- ↑ 1 Among the fruits of these is Lieut. F.T. Haig's Report on the Navigability of the River Godavery (Madras, 1856), which contains elaborate plans and diagrams and a fund of information on the ways of the river.
- ↑ 1 Statement exhibiting the Material and Moral Progress of India during 1872-73. P 79.
- ↑ 2 Chapter XI of The Engineering works of the Gódávari Delta (Madras, 1896).
- ↑ 3 Dated April 17th, 1845.
- ↑ 1 In his letter No. 184, dated 3rd August 1849, Captain Orr gives the number required as 10. There are now 54, exclusive of head-locks.
- ↑ 1 These, and except where otherwise stated the following, figures are for the whole delta system, including the part in Kistna district.
- ↑ 1 op, cit., p. 152.
- ↑ 1 The Collector's office estimates the number of these institutions at 71.