Annual Report 2011-12 on the Working of State Power Utilities and Electricity Departments

Abstract

It is difficult to say when exactly the first power plant was built in British India. There are, however, scattered reports available and it is said that in January 1887, Kilburn and Co. secured an electric lighting license as agents of the Indian Electric Company Limited. The Company changed its name to the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation (CESC) soon afterwards. The first power generating company in Calcutta was started in 1899. There is yet another report which speaks of the first diesel power station established in Delhi in 1905. This was a private plant set up by an Englishman in the name of M/s John Fleming.