Exploring The Water Heritage Of Mumbai

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The city of Mumbai in India has generated a lot of curiosity among the scholars within India and abroad. The multi-dimensional nature of the city and the exuberant continuity in spite of various hurdles have been the strong points of Mumbai. Every city expands with the political rules. Today the municipal jurisdiction of Mumbai is identified with the term MCGM i.e., Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. The term ?Bombay? in the British records enveloped the area of seven islands. In ancient and medieval times certain localities outside the later British ?Bombay? had got populated. The book shows that these areas had the sources of potable water supply and hence they got populated. Later, the British officials identified many of these areas as having potential of providing water to the entire city. These were then considered for the major water schemes. Before the major water schemes like Vehar Water Works there were various efforts to conserve and preserve water because the existing water supply, as the official records reflect, by way of tanks and wells in South Bombay was inadequate to cater to the needs of the people. The book states such efforts towards early water management in the city. Water charities done by many philanthropists to the city came as a boon especially when there was inflow of population since the nineteenth century. The book takes a survey of these water charities. The book discusses the development of water till the Tansa Water Works. The present volume will interest people at large, in particular, specialists in water management and conservation, historians, architects, sociologists and anthropologists.\n\n

Dr. Varsha Shirgaonkar, Professor and Head, Department of History, S.N.D.T. Womens University, Mumbai is a well-known scholar of international repute. Her area of specialisation is cultural history of eighteenth and nineteenth century Maharashtra and Bengal. Her study of lavanis ? as a source of cultural history of Maharashtra ? fetched her invitations to participate in international conferences at the University of Venice (August 1997) and University of Sydney (January 1999) and to give a talk at San Diego Museum of Art, California (July 2003). Her project, for which she obtained grant from the UGC, is entitled, ?Language and Culture: History of Maharashtra through Lavanis? (2000- 2002). She received a research grant of the Royal Numismatic Society of the British Museum, London in June 2003 for her project on Indian Tokens. She was the Sectional President of Modern India in two state-level conferences in Maharashtra (Islampur ? January 2000 and Satara ? January 2004). Her research on Mumbai was duly recognized when she was invited as Sectional President of History of Mumbai in a state-level conference jointly convened by the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Pune and Department of Sanskrit, University of Mumbai in May 2007. Being a Project Coordinator, she completed a project, ?Listing Present Fabric Status and Conservation Plan for the Fountains and Pyaavs in the City of Mumbai?, which was awarded by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Heritage Conservation Society to Department of History, Ramnarain Ruia College, Matunga, Mumbai (March 2007). Dr. Varsha Shirgaonkar has five books and several research articles to her credit.

Varsha S. Shirgaonkar

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