History
With the few thousand wells feeding the population of Mumbai tending to go dry during summer, the acute shortage of water resulted in protests by the local residents in June 1845. A two man committee, appointed by the British rulers of the time, to examine the grievances of the agitators concurred with water shortage problem and stressed the urgent need to solve the water supply problem of Mumbai.
The Committee appointed by the government located suitable sites to construct dams and create reservoirs to store the monsoon flows of the Mithi river catchment, which resulted in presently existing Vihar Lake, Tulsi Lake and the Powai Lake. Vihar reservoir was the first piped water supply scheme of Mumbai.
In 1850, Captain Crawford submitted a report favouring the Vihar Scheme for the Mumbai city’s water supply needs.
Work on the “Vihar Water Works” commenced in January 1856 and was completed in 1860, during the governorship of John Lord Elphinstone.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC),a Govt. body which controls the lake's affairs has also acquired agricultural land in the catchment area of the Vihar lake as a sanitary precaution.
Read more about this topic: Vihar Lake
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