‘Restore vintage water tanks’

Claiming that only 53 of the British–built underground static water tanks across the island city of Mumbai are currently traceable, Shiv Sena corporator Avkash Jadhav has asked the BMC to immediately restore them and put them in the heritage category.

According to Mr Jadhav, who recently stumbled upon an old plaque on the tanks in the compound of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vaastu Sangrahalay, there are 66 British — built underground static water tanks across the island city of Mumbai that are not looked after anymore as authorities allegedly forgot they existed. The plaque, to which Jadhav referred to, had read ‘Static Water Tank A-4’. These tanks have a water-storage capacity of about 2.5 lakh litres each. However, only 53 of these 66 are now traceable, as the others have either become non-traceable, or non-accessible due to construction over them, according to Mr Jadhav.

Upon further probe, Mr Jadhav fund out that there are six such tanks in the A ward alone, and 60 others between A and G wards, in the Island city. Each of these tanks has uniform dimensions of 10X10 metres and a depth of 3 metres. In all, these tanks will have a total water carrying capacity of 1.57 crore litres.