The greatest scientific achievement of the nineteenth century is the discovery of electricity. The twentieth century is making use of electricity so extensively that it has almost changed the face of the earth. "Electricity—carrier of light and power, devourer of time and space, bearer of human speech over land and sea, is the greatest servant of man, though it is itself unknown.
Lenin saw Russia's hydro-electrical potentialities. The application of electricity to industry and agriculture was Lenin's dream. In India, we have staked our whole future on a rapid growth of our hydroelectric power.
The modern age is the age of machinery. The true object of substituting human labour by mechanical labour is to find greater leisure for man. Machines must be driven by natural power. And the most pervasive of all sources of natural power is electricity, mechanical, hydro wind followed by electronics now-a-days.
Look at life today in a modern city. Electricity regulates the clock that rouses us from bed; boils the water that makes our tea, cooks our food on heat-proof cooking ranges or cookers; works the radio and TV that tell us the news; rings the bell that announces a visitor; carries our telegraphic message to distant places; conveys us to our office in luxurious tram-cars and trains; takes us to our room somewhere in some multi-stroied building on elevators; electricity lifts; refrigerates the food to keep it completely fresh; lights our rooms when the sun goes down; warms it in winter and cools it in summer; in short, does everything for our comfort and convenience with the utmost efficiency at all hours.
To generate and harness electricity on a large scale means the development of machinery capable of doing so. The various multipurpose schemes, which we are running at such a heavy cost over the years, are for the production of large-scale electricity.
But most of our electricity was based on coal: the total output was lamentably low. Now that such multipurpose schemes as those of Bhakra Nangal, Damodar Valley or Hirakud have made it possible to provide to even remote villages with electric powers, and help change life beyond recognition. India's resources for generating electricity are second to no other country in the world. Even some Atomic plants have generating electricity.