Engineering marvel of the Mughal era functional even today

Adages and poems by Mughal subedar Khanzada Mirza Khan Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana or Rahim are common even today. But little is known about his engineering skills and the underground water works system that is still functional. Here, we are talking about the Khooni Bhandara or the kundi Bhandara created during the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar about 400 years ago in Burhanpur, Madhya Pradesh.

Mughals developed Burhanpur and made it the base for their expansion in south India. The place was ideal as it is situated on the banks of rivers Tapti and Utavali which was required to meet the needs of more than two lakh army personnel and 35,000 civilians.

Still, there were certain areas of concern and the subedar came up with the idea of developing a underground water harvesting system as a precautionary measure to prevent the enemy from poisoning the drinking water and to ensure that the enemies do not stop the supply of water to the city.

Construction & engineering
In 1615, a Persian geologist 1615Tabkutul Arj constructed khooni bhandara, consisting interconnected 103 kundis through a 3.9 km long underground marble tunnel. When the work started, the water was reddish in colour –thanks to the mineral properties -and thus got its name ‘khooni’.

The rainwater seeped into the wells from Satpura hills and ran through the city supplying water to homes. It does so even now.

An intelligent design
The design is based on the simple law of gravity instead of external energy for supplying water to the city. The water flows from the firstkundi constructed on the Satpura hill to the last kundi. The diameter and depth of these kundis varies according to their location. The first kundi is relatively much deeper than the last one. All the kundis have entry points to the underground system to carry out requisite repair works. From above the ground, one can see iron sieve covered well-like construction, which enable the air and light to go into the well.

The present
The annual water storage capacity of thekhooni bhandara declined from one million liters of water to 0.15 million liters in 1975-76. In 1997, it was merely 0.04 million liters and since then it is on a decline. But the government, engineers, scientists and historians despite paucity of funds are constantly working to maintain it and bring it back to its original capacity.

Kundi Bhandara was damaged in 1977 and remained out of sight for about 12 years. People sometimes dump unwanted stuff into these wells and pollute the water. Some of the other factors that are contributing to its decline are thickening layers of calcium and magnesium on the walls, the degree of siltation increased, as some kundis collapsed, blocking the tunnel with debris, Kundis are being used as private wells and of course the unchecked discharge of chemical waste from the powerloom plant in the city is contaminating the water in the tunnel.

-windowtonews