Pilc or PVC? Author(s) : K. V. Subrahmanyam Reviewed Work(s) : Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Jan. 20, 1968), Pp. 203-204 Published By: Stable URL: Accessed: 25/01/2013 17:33
Pilc or PVC? Author(s) : K. V. Subrahmanyam Reviewed Work(s) : Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Jan. 20, 1968), Pp. 203-204 Published By: Stable URL: Accessed: 25/01/2013 17:33
Pilc or PVC? Author(s) : K. V. Subrahmanyam Reviewed Work(s) : Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Jan. 20, 1968), Pp. 203-204 Published By: Stable URL: Accessed: 25/01/2013 17:33
20, 1968), pp. 203-204 Published by: Economic and Political Weekly Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4358158 . Accessed: 25/01/2013 17:33
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Economic and Political Weekly is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Economic and Political Weekly.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded on Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:33:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
INDUSTRY
PILC or PVC ?
K V Subrahmanyam
LONG brfore Indian entrepreneurs started seeking collaboration agreements with foreign firms for the manufacture of power cables, advancing technology and scarcity of raw materials, especially of lead and copper, had resulted in serious encroachments being made by poly-vinyl-chloride (PVC) cables with aluminium conductors into the preserves of paper-insulated-lead-covered (PILC) cables with copper conductors. How, then, did Government decide to en courage reckless creation of capacity in the power cable manufacturing industry for the production of goods that were not only far advanced on the highway to obsolescence, but had also to depend on high-cost imported raw materials? The clue to an understanding of this episode, just one among many in postIndependence history, was provided sixty years ago in 1907 by Sir Thomas Holland, FRS, then the Director of the Geological Survey of India, with prophetic foresight when he said: "In this country there is a tendency to follow the English model using methodwhich persist in the old country only because vested interests there involved outweigh the disadvantages due to their continued use. We, however, do not even transplant the methods and machinery up-to-date, but lend ourselves to the acceptance of material about to be discarded in Europe." Since Independence, the tendency to which Holland referred has been sublimitated into an esoteric virtue by the bureaucracy in New Delhi.
S NEW ENTRANT
bought cables for their managed companies and other operations had secured selling agencies for one or the other of the innumerable power cable manufacturers in UK. BICC met this competition by founding Indian Cable in the twenties near Tatanagar. Until Japan entered the war in 1942, this company had no rivals in India. In that year, when Sir A Ramaswami Mudaliar was the Supply Member in the Viceroy's Executive Council, was born Nationa] Insulated Cable, of which he has been chairman for a number of years now. Neither had any plans for the manufacture of PILC cables and both were tied to British Insulated through capital participation and technical collaboration.
conductors were capable, Government issued liccrices to as many as six. out of a total of eleven, for the manufacture of PILC cables. Some of the approved collaborators, eg, PhclpsDodge of US and Enfield Cables of UK had large copper interests and could not be expected to take the Indian view of the aluminium vs copper question. The licensing authorities in New Delhi, too, were obviously little concerned with the country's interests in the context of a poor endowment of non-ferrous metals.
PVC is RELIABLE
Before PVC cables and cables with aluminium conductors appeared on the scene as serious competitors to PILC cables with copper conductors, there was sufficient competition between cable manufacturers all over the world to induce them to go in for electrical contracting, which provided an assured outlet for their products. British Insulated Callender Cables was the leading cable manufacturer in UK before the outbreak of the Second World War. It found that the leading Indian managing agenc,- houses which
These two companies reigned supreme until the late fifties when the acute shortage of power cables, existence of high profits and important restrictions attracted many new entrants into the industry. Under pressure from Government, Indian Cable (which is a subsidiary of British Insulated) took up the manufacture of PILC cables. The surging boom in the demand for power cables as the second five-year plan got under way brought in many others on the scene. Naturally enough, Birlas were one of the first among them; their Hindusthan Woollen Mills was transformed iinto Universal Cables with Bri tish Insulated collaboration. Birlas were consequently well-set for securing, even before production could commence at their Satna factory, an increase in licensed annual capacity from 1000 km to 1600 km. The remarkable feature about the Indian power cable manufacturing industry as it now emerged was that British Insulated had acquired, through technical collaboration, a stake in three leading concerns, National (Khemka) Universal (Birla) and Fort Gloster (Bangur), apart, of course, from having its own subsidiary, Indian Cable.
Among the eight licencees for the manufacture of VIR and PVC cables, only one, Cable Corporation (Siemens), is manufacturing PVC cables of the kind which compete with PILC cables. These armoured PVC multi-core power cables were first introduced into India by Siemens of West Germany under their patented trade name of Tropodur around 1957. In the mining industry, which is one of the major users of power cables, regulations were for long misinterpreted to exclude cables other than PILCDWA from underground use. Government officially accepted PVC cables for underground use only in mid-1966, nearly five years after they were accepted for this purpose in Great Britain. Before doing so, Government sought the advice of not just the National Coal Board of UK, but aiso that of British Insulated!
In the meanwhile, even after the use of aluminium was made obligatory for all power cables, both PILC and PVC, underground PVC cables had to have copper conductors. The consequence of preventing cables with aluminiunm conductors for underground use has been that cable manufacturers had to continue the import of electrolytic copper, when such imports were considered as luxuries by better-endowed countries. The argument that PVC cables cannot withstand extreme variations in temperature cannot be taken seriously. I have been directly responsible for approval of their use underground in mines and, from first hand experience Just when everyone in the power extending over nearly eight years, I cable industry was watching with keen can assert that they are any day more interest the revolutionary changes of reliable than PILC cables in the 1.1 kv which PVC insulation and alumniniurn range. The experience of the NCB of 203
This content downloaded on Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:33:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
UK is all additional proof of my con- rubber industries, plastic insulated power having aluiminiumconductors are ligllter. tention. In fact, in one of the mica mines cables had become serious competitors If, in addition, the insulation is of PVC, where both types of cables were to the paper-insulated metal-sheathied that is, without the lead sheath, 1hle involved in underground flooding, the cables for buildings, factories and mines difference in weight is substantial enough PILC cable had to be scrapped. The not only in the US, but even in Great to effect significant savings in freight PVC cable (Tropodur) was no worse Britain itself. The impact of this as well as handling and installation for the experience except that short competition was, however, imperceptible costs. lengths near the joints had to be in India because our laws relating to The change from copper to aluminium the generation, transmission, distribution discarded. in Great Britain is reflected in B S PILC cables with copper conductors and utilisation of electrical energy wcre 480:1966-Impregnated Paper-Insulated suffered from two handicaps after their reproduced almost wholly from those Cables. It applies both to 660/1100 V manufacture was perfected. The use of prevailing in the UK a quarter centuiry and 11 kv cables. To quote C C Barnes, oil-impregnated paper necessitated the earlier. The Indian Standards Institution author of the recen. standard British provision of an effective sheath tlhat sought inspiration from its British coun- treatise on Power Cables: "For induswould protect it from moisture and terpart at every stage and was itself trial use above ground PVC cables could be easily extruded on to it. Lead dominated by representatives of British conforming to B S 3346:1961 have was, therefore, the natural choice but electrical manufacturing firms. We virtually eliminated paper cables. The since lead is a soft material, it needed. were allowed no other alternative ex- attractive appearance, easy handling, in turn, another protective cover against cept that of importing PILC cables with economy, relatively light weighit and mnechanical damage and chemical copper conductors from Great Britain. flame-retardant properties of PVC attack. Second, lead being the heaviest cables have contributed to this important EVEN BRITAIN CHANGES known among the base metals, the change. As the insulation is not weight of the cable was increased to an In Great Britain itself, three major affected by moisture, terminations do inordinate extent. Research directed specifications were issued in the early not require compound-sealing and tertowards eliminating these two handicaps sixties for PVC cables in EHV usage. minal lugs may be quickly applied by was in progress even during the thirties. They were compression techniques." Of special Outside Germany it was concerned, on importance in this context is the follow(1) B S 3346: 1961 for voltages 250/ the one hand, with using aluminium in ing extract from a paper by C D Wil440, 660/1100 and 1900/3300; place of lea<]and, on the other, eliminatentitled: "Electricity in (2) NCB specification No 295: 1962 kinson ing the use of paper, thus, obviating Mines" (Proc Inst of Elect Eng, Lond, for cables used in coal miies; the need for sheathing. In Germany January 1964): "After the passing of and itself, with Hitler in power and Schacht the Coal Mines Act 1911, the use of (3) BEA specification C7:1962. directing its 'ersatz' economy, it was single core and unarmoured cables The manufacture of these plastic concerned, in addition, with the use underground was prohibited, and frorn of copper for insulated cables was firmly established that time multi-core wire-armoured of aluminium in place by 1961 and they were becoming availthe conductors, along with the developable with high-conductivity aluminium cables have been used. Steel tape nient of synthetic rubbers. wires. The reason was simple: the price armouring is not used for colliery cables The second world war saw the of aluminium was being maintained because of the difficulty of ensuring creation by the US Government of below pre-war levels by an aggressive that it will comply with the regulation an enormous production capacity in and forward-looking aluminium industry that requires the earth circuit to have aluminium metal and the growth to out to penetrate and conquer the es- a conductance equal to 50 per cent maturity of the synthetic rubber tablished realms of copper, while the of that of the largest conductor in the industry. In the first decade after the prices of copper were behaving most cable. PILCDWA cables have been second world war, the US and West Ger- erratically due to the combined efforts most widely used. But, recently, tests many took up the manufacture of of pugilist Welensky and his northern have shown that PVC cables have a armoured PVC insulated multi-core neighbour, secessionist Tshombe. Only great resistance to impact-crushing, and cables in a big way especially because in buildings, the regulations in Britain cables of this type are being increasthere was a sellers' market in non-ferrous prohibit the use of aluminium conduc- ingly used for voltages upon 3.3 kv.' metals and the US petrochemical in- tors below 0.03 sq in cross-sectional area. Apart from all these advantages, dustry had grown rapidly. Great Britaini, In all other situations, the choice of flame-retardantproperties and moisturehowever, found itself, when the war cables having aluminium conductors in proofness have special significance for ended, with neither any production preference to those having copper safety in coal mines, oilfields and such capacity in aluminium metal nor the conductors has been guided by the other locations from the view-point of basis for a synthetic rubber industry. comparative costs of cables of the sizes accidents from explosion, fire and Even to this day, it is a net importer required to give the necessary current- shock. Since PVC cables do not reof aluminiium with very little control rating or voltage-drop. Because of the quire paper for insulation, lead for over its sources; the position was the non-lineai relationship between current- sheathing, and copper for the conducsame until about 1958 in regard to rating and conductor area, the size of tors, all of which have to be imported, synthetic rubbers. aluminium conductor varies from 1.5 their use will be a direct contribution By 1958, when Great Britain had to 1.6 times that of a copper conductor to the saving of enormous amounts of built up its petrochemical and synthetic for equivalent rating. Even so, cables foreign exchange.
204
This content downloaded on Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:33:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Note: This service is not intended for secure transactions such as banking, social media, email, or purchasing. Use at your own risk. We assume no liability whatsoever for broken pages.
Alternative Proxies: