Saluting dam-maker Slocum

Raj Kumar Malhotra

Former Chief Engineer, Bhakra Dam

The Bhakra Dam was the first major flood control, water storage and hydroelectric power generation project of independent India. The Sutlej river passed through a narrow, V-shaped, 700-ft-deep gorge in the Shivalik range near Bhakra village in Bilaspur district. The dam plugged this gap to accumulate water in the Gobind Sagar reservoir.

The dam was inaugurated by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on October 22, 1963, in the presence of ministers, engineers and the public. However, the builder of the dam, Harvey Slocum, was conspicuous by his absence. He had died on November 11, 1961. Slocum built 18 large dams, Bhakra being the tallest and the most challenging.

Conceived way back in 1908, the dam remained in limbo for decades. Its construction gained traction after Independence, but the nagging question was: Who should build it? Constructing a 740-ft-high straight-gravity concrete dam required sophisticated technology and cutting-edge expertise. The Punjab Irrigation Department lacked both. Senior engineers suggested that the project be entrusted to a foreign firm. AN Khosla, Chairman, Central Waterways Commission, convinced then Punjab Governor CPN Singh to get the dam built departmentally with technical backstopping by Slocum, an American dam-building expert. PM Nehru approved the plan.

Khosla and MR Chopra (senior superintending engineer) travelled to the USA and requested Slocum to accept the assignment. He refused, arguing that the immensity and complexity of the project, deficient manpower and unavailability of construction machinery were compounded by red tape. To gracefully back out of the negotiations, Slocum agreed to have his lawyer draw a contract; the latter assured him that no government would sign it. To their surprise, the team signed the contract on behalf of the Government of India.

The 10-year contract was highly pro-Slocum. Besides a tax-free salary, the contract stipulated that he would spend four months a year on the project, and that too in spells to be determined by him; he could induct foreign specialists as consultants and procure equipment from anywhere in the world; whatever he did as part of the project would not be questioned; and only the US courts would have jurisdiction over any contract-related dispute.

Slocum (then 64) became the head supervising engineer of construction in April 1952 as perhaps the highest paid employee at that time of the Indian Government, receiving $8,300 per month. Mentally tearing up what he was contractually obliged to do, Slocum committed the government to do whatever was required to build the dam. Overriding various layers of the bureaucracy, he was able to approach the PM to get things done. He spent nine months every year at the project site.

I was a member of the Bhakra Dam team for 12 years. Working with Slocum as an executive engineer, I gained insights into his expertise, dynamism and persona.

The daunting tasks included procurement of heavy machinery; construction of workshops, concrete mixing plant, warehouses, hospital, school, houses, fire stations and a railway line leading to the dam site; excavating and removing millions of tonnes of overburden; transporting a huge quantity of cement and steel; and training of engineers and workers.

A doer and a disciplinarian, Slocum tackled intricate obstacles remarkably well. Nangal township was developed as the nerve centre of the dam. He galvanised 300 engineers and 10,000 workers into cohesive and agile teams, working three shifts a day. The paradigm shift was pivoted on engineers shedding neckties and white collars and coming to the work site in khaki. His gospel was a synergy of 3Ms — men, material and machines — for optimising the output. Slocum gave on-the-spot instructions. When a job was successfully executed, he lavished praise on those who had done it.

Reviewing weekly progress on Tuesdays, Slocum emphasised safety norms. He operationalised foolproof protocols against the fury of floodwater and fire. A fully functional firefighting system was always ready. More than one million cubic metres of overburden was scraped off the sides of steep abutments by hand.

Slocum gave special attention to workers’ welfare. They affectionately called him ‘Baba Slocum’. Driving his Oldsmobile convertible to the site, he used to stop at Golethai labour colony and distribute candies among workers’ children as they shouted ‘Baba, Baba’ in unison.

The first milestone was reached when Nehru poured a bucket of concrete on November 16, 1955. Commissioning of the left bank powerhouse on December 10, 1961, by Nehru was the second milestone. He paid glowing tributes to Slocum.

In addition to his salary, the government set up a bank account in the US for Slocum’s personal expenses. He used it very prudently. Although the contract provided for any number of visits by his wife Helen Slocum to the project site, she made only one trip, reaching her husband’s bedside hours before his death. She returned to the US with his body.

By storing 9,340 million cubic metres of water, the dam minimised downstream flooding, brought additional 24 million hectares under irrigation and improved irrigation intensity. Enhanced canal irrigation in conjunction with the introduction of high-yielding dwarf wheat varieties and the use of fertilisers manufactured at the Nangal factory — run on dam-generated electricity — launched the wheat revolution in Punjab, putting India on the road to food self-sufficiency.

Slocum received the Durga Prasad Khaitan Gold Medal, the Beavers Award and the Moles Award, which declared him ‘The Best Dam Man in the World’. These honours were unusual for a person who had studied only up to Class VIII. He had received no education in engineering. Starting as a 13-year-old labourer in a steel mill, he rose to the position of construction superintendent on the Grand Coulee Dam. Slocum’s Indian mentees built Nangal, Pandoh, Pong and Ranjit Sagar dams, fulfilling his wish to be remembered not only as the maker of dams but also as the maker of dam men. 

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