Shimla’s water supply system: Then and now

Raaja Bhasin

This summer, the residents of Shimla have been promised that there will be no water shortage. The management of water system has been transferred to the recently created Shimla Jal Prabandhan Nigam Limited. The supply of water is expected to be around 50 mld, which is significantly higher than before. The Managing Director of the Nigam, Dharmender Gill, has been concentrating on plugging leakages and seems happy with the amount of water in streams.

Water shortage in Shimla is nothing new, but last summer, things came to a head and with this basic necessity missing, the town and its people reached a low civilisational denominator.

This is a little introduction to Shimla’s elaborate water supply system that was developed in the late 19th and early 20th century. Simple, effective and sound engineering and an understanding of basic principles of water management underpinned these schemes. If there was simplicity to the principle, there was fairly elaborate working to implement it – which springs and streams to tap, how to set out the weirs and holding tanks, control of the forests around, setting up a supply line of coal to the steam-driven pumps – the list is quite long.

Till the 1870s, Shimla relied heavily on the erratic supply of water from a dozen-and-a-half baolis, springs; these sources were scattered around town and while some were perennial, others could dry up when they were needed the most. Along the slopes of the hill of Jakhoo, the flow of the Combermere stream was somewhat more substantial and reliable.

The Combermere stream has now been largely obscured by the construction around it. This was the stream that was bridged by Lord Combermere, Commander-in-Chief of the British Indian Army, when he visited Shimla in 1828. At the time, he also had constructed a large water tank to dam and tap the flow of the stream that was then named after him. From this tank, most of the town’s residents would take their water and there was a steady flow of servants filling goatskin bags, mashks, which they strapped on their backs and then emptied out in the homes where they served.

In 1861, years after the tank had been built, the next major step was taken to add to Shimla’s inadequate and erratic water supply. Under the supervision of the geologist HB Medlicott (who had undertaken the first geological survey of the Shimla area), tunnels were bored on the sides of the hill above to supplement the flow of the stream with the water that seeped into the hill. Finally, four tunnels were made and ran a few hundred feet into the Jakhoo hill. The water tank could now hold around 1,00,000 litres of water and a pipe was placed to connect to a tap in the bazaar area. Almost needless to add, the rumour-mongers then, and subsequently, attributed the purpose to these tunnels as escape routes for the colonial British.

With the rapidly growing town and its political importance, this arrangement could not last indefinitely and in the 1880s, around 15,000 acres of the thick woods of what came to be known as the ‘Catchment Area’ or the ‘Upper Gravity Supply Zone’ were leased from the Rana of Koti for Rs 2,250 a year. Work to tap the springs and streams in these woods began and iron pipes were placed below them. By 1883, the masonry work was also complete and large water tanks and reservoirs were ready; the same year, a steam engine had been commissioned at Churat (Cherot). By the early 1890s, the little villages within this area had been relocated and detailed working plans (which were modified over the years) had been drawn. It stands testimony to the quality of workmanship and the sound solidity of the engineering that the systems are functioning well after all this time.

As the years passed and the demand for water increased in Shimla, extensions were made to the scheme. Additional pipes were set out and a huge reservoir was built at Seog. In 1913, once electricity arrived, the steam turbine pump at Churat was replaced by one that ran on electricity and this also ended the chain of labourers that carried wood and coal to the boilers. One unusual aspect of all these early pumping stations is that much of the equipment was manufactured on-site and even the casting was done with gunmetal at Churat. . 

(The writer is an author, historian and journalist)