HAND CHAKKI AND GHARAT – TRADITIONAL FLOUR MAKING UNITS

 

Much before the emergence of watermills for grinding the food grains like wheat, maize, pulses or spices, it was perhaps the Hand Chakki a common house hold tool that was used for grinding purposes at individual home level. It consists of two round shaped chiseled wheels like stones, placed one over other, lower stone has a pivot in center and upper a central hole and a fixed wooden piece at an edge to work as handle to rotate the upper stone to grind the material. It is operated manually in a sitting position and is a handy tool for domestic kitchen, but the grounded material is little course and considered inferior to the material obtained from water mills.

Watermill/ (Gharat) Pan-chakki

Gharat is a traditional watermill locally known as panchakki, ghat or ghatta, still popular in hilly and sub-mountain areas of India where small water streams exist and continue to flow by gravity, for grinding food grains like wheat, corn, rice or pulses and spices. People prefer items ground by these mills for taste, aroma and flavour. Slow revolving grinding stones prevent heating up of flour because slow water flowing underground helps in retaining flavour, aroma and nutrients of the cereal. These traditional watermills, though low in efficiency, have proven too sustainable and are the best examples of clean energy generation at small scale.

History

 The water wheel is an ancient device that uses flowing or falling water to create power by means of paddles mounted around a wheel all over globe. The force of the water moves the paddles and the consequent rotation of the wheel are transmitted to machinery via the shaft of the wheel. The first reference to a water wheel dates back to around 4000 BCE.Vitruvius, an engineer who died in 14 CE, has been credited with creating and using a vertical water wheel during Roman times. The wheels were also used for crop irrigation and grinding grains, as well as to supply drinking water to villages. In later years, they drove sawmills, pumps, forge bellows, tilt-hammers, and trip hammers, and even powered textile mills. The water wheel was perhaps the first method of mechanical energy developed to replace the work of humans and animals. In 1839, Lorenzo Dow Adkins of Perry Township, Ohio received a patent for another water wheel innovation, the spiral-bucket water wheel.

 In India

 Traditional watermills have existed in the Himalayan region and northern plains of India since 4th century AD which was used for grinding grains/spices and cattle feed in rural areas. These mills look like a small structure generally constructed near a village stream and are powered by the flowing water drawn through a narrow channel from cascading mountain stream, river or irrigation canal. Climate change, urbanization together with scientific advancement has led to the closure and abandonment of large number of such mills due to streams and springs drying up, and occasional flash flooding. Arrival of grid power and diesel engines in the villages further made usage of watermills limited. Gharats too has two round wheel shaped stones one placed over the other, the lower stone being fixed and the other rotating with flow of water arranged to fall on the blades of the water wheel, grinding the grains falling between the two stones. The two stone wheels shaped are heavy and thicker than the hand chakki. There used to be a time when gharats were found established along the banks of almost all streams and rivulets having sufficient flow of water during the whole year.

Jammu region

 In Udhampur, people would carry sacks of grains such as maize and wheat on their heads or load the grains on the mules and donkeys, travel long distances and throng the gharats located on the banks of river Tawi, Dudhar, Jhajjar and other streams, big or small, to get the grains ground to have flour for the members of family and daala for the cattle. Many a time, a person would have to visit the gharat twice, first to hand over the grains to the owner of the gharat and then to get the flour after two three days. In some cases, the people would have to stay put at the gharat for the night and cook the food from the flour and local vegetable offered by the gharatis/owner to have the flour in case the river would be in spate owing to heavy rain. Gharats had such a great contribution to the village economy that even the Dogra Rulers promulgated, The Water Mills (Jandar and Gharat) Act, BIKRAMI SAMVAT.1989 (1932A.D.) to regulate the functioning of Gharats. In the land settlement a separate Khasra No. (Estate No.) was allotted to the Jandar Gharat.

 Flour quality

The flour obtained from the gharats was and is still preferred to that obtained from the electric chakki due to the former having more ‘cohesion’ making it easier to prepare thinner and tastier chapattis, especially of the maize flour. But now the electric flour and rice mills have been installed in almost every village and as a result of fast life and paucity of time coupled with lack of patience, people prefer to go to electric chakkis to get the grains ground.

 Present scenario

The gharats are almost passing into oblivion, except in some mountainous and hilly regions. There is need to encourage and appreciate as Gharati to revive this age old profession. The gharatis need to be provided training to improve their skill and modernize their gharats to produce floor of high hygienic quality. Because Chakki Atta is gaining popularity with the people in view of its high bran and nutrients content and if the people associated with the gharats are encouraged, they can improve their business and boost economy.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

The union is currently exploring more efforts in establishing market linkages since the nutritious value of products processed from watermill is considered superior in quality and taste. It is estimated that there had been a hundred-thousand traditional watermills across the Hindukush –Himalayan region. Revival and improvement of many such feasible watermills close to habitation areas, roads and market centers could boost sustainable generation of low cost clean power in the region and provide local livelihoods as well as business opportunities to many. Realizing its immense potential, IUCN is also replicating this project in the state of Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim under the project.

Himalayan villages and the management of mountain landscape

. With an aims to demonstrate how best to generate clean energy at a low cost and empower local communities to be self-sufficient energy wise. In pursuit of this, the mission implemented one of the activities of the project, revival of watermills in Village Mandal, District Chamoli, and Uttarakhand. It was found that the existing traditional watermills could be improved for larger generation of clean energy locally and enhancing livelihood opportunities in mountain villages Now, Village Mandal has its own efficient watermill at the doorstep and the villagers do not have to walk miles away for grinding grains, able to grind at least 20 Kg of cereal in an hour which is 4-5 times of what it used to grind in earlier days. Besides able to reduce grinding charges from Rs. 3 per Kg to Rs. 2 per Kg for the local people here, a project beneficiary whose old mill had washed away in the year 2013 Uttarakhand floods

 Types of water wheels.

1. Horizontal water wheel: Water flows from an aqueduct and the forward action of the water turns the wheel. The first water wheels were horizontal and can be described as grindstones mounted atop vertical shafts whose vaned or paddled lower ends dipped into a swift stream. But as early as the first century, the horizontal water wheel which was terribly inefficient in transferring the power of the current to the milling mechanism was replaced by water wheels of the vertical design. 2. The overshot vertical water wheel, in which water flows from an aqueduct and the gravity of the water turns the wheel. 3. The undershot vertical water wheel works by being placed in a stream and turned by the river’s natural motion.

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Courtesy: . (DR.) B L PUTTOO and  Spade A Spade-DECEMBER ,2025