Powai Lake
| Powai Lake पवई तलाव |
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| Location | Mumbai, Maharashtra |
| Coordinates | 19°08′N 72°55′E / 19.13°N 72.91°E |
| Catchment area | 6.61 km2 (2.55 sq mi) |
| Basin countries | India |
| Max. depth | 12 m (39 ft) |
| Surface elevation | 58.5 m (191.93 ft) |
| Settlements | Powai |
Powai Lake (named after Framaji Kavasji Powai Estate) is an artificial lake, situated in Mumbai, in the Powai valley, where a Powai village with a cluster of huts existed. The city suburb called Powai shares its name with the lake. Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, one of the premier institutions of science and technology in India, is located to the east of the lake. Another famous institution, the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), is also located close to the lake. Housing complexes and plush hotels are developed all around the lake periphery. Population around the lake has thus substantially increased over the years.
When it was built, the lake had an area of about 2.1 square kilometres (520 acres) and the depth varied from about 3 metres (9.8 ft) (at the periphery) to 12 metres (39 ft) at its deepest.
The Powai Lake has gone through many stages of water quality degradation. The lake water which used to supply drinking water for Mumbai has been declared unfit to drink. The lake still remains a tourist attraction.
Before the lake was built by the British, in 1799 AD, the estate where the lake is now was leased on a yearly rent to Dr. Scott. After his death in 1816, the government took control of the estate in 1826 and leased it to Framaji Kavasji, then the vice-president of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of Western India after whom the lake was named when it was built in 1891.
A stream tributary of the Mithi river, which served the Powai village's water needs, was dammed in 1891, during the British period. It was initially to augment water supply to Bombay city (now called Mumbai), by constructing two dams of 10 m to store the rain water flowing from the lower slopes of the Western Ghats and streams from the eastern and northeastern slopes of hills. It was planned as an antiwater famine measure, to the southeast of Vihar Lake (a much larger lake) also for water supply to Mumbai city. The scheme was taken in hand in 1889. Though it was completed within a year at an initial cost of more than Rs. 6,50,000 and started providing two million gallons of water per day, it had to be abandoned due to the hue and cry against the quality of the water. Five lakhs of rupees more were spent on the scheme in 1919 in an attempt to restore the supply at least for the suburbs but this, too, was given up with the development of the Tansa works.
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Wikipedia