Come 2025, 16 historic drinking water fountains colloquially known as ‘pyaus’ will get new a lease of life, as Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) set to take them up for restoration.
These pyaus are drinking water fountains whose structure is quite similar to modern day jumbo water-filters. However, unlike modern day filters which are equipped with water taps, the pyaus used to be sprouts that would dispense water, round-the-clock.
These 16 pyaus, whose origin ranges between 19th and early 20th century, were set up in popular places of gathering like markets while the island city grew into a trading hub. The pyaus were built as a form of water charity, funded by wealthy merchants and philanthropists. They were often built to honour loved ones or as an act of piety.
These structures are a testament to Mumbai’s history, flaunting their unique architectural expression of the city’s socio-cultural heritage. Each one has its own distinct style, based on the location, material and artisans.
In 2018, BMC mooted a plan to restore the city’s lost pyaus after Vaastu Vidhaan—a heritage conservation firm—submitted a proposal to map 21 pyaus that would be transformed into a heritage circuit. Four years later, BMC restored four pyaus that were located inside Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udhyan (Ranibaug) and made them fully operational. As of today, these pyaus act as drinking water filters inside the udhyan.
Prior to this, another pyau in Shivaji Park was also restored by civic authorities.
In the second phase, BMC will restore a slew of 16 pyaus in Mumbai in areas like Hay Bunder, Dadar, Sandhurst Road in South Mumbai. Civic officials said while most pyaus are located in the island city, only one is in the suburbs at – Bandra.
“These pyaus are remnants of history and our plan is to preserve them so that the city’s unmapped heritage is known to people. The pyaus are mostly products of philanthropy when affluent members hailing from Parsi, Gujarati communities built them in public places for common people to drink water,” said a civic official.
These pyaus were originally built with malad, basalt and limestones and the official said the tender currently under process will be floated next year.
“After floating the tenders it will take another month to finalise the contractor. It’s safe to assume that work can begin on the ground before the end of this fiscal. Besides making them fully functional water dispensers yet again, we will also install QR codes in the structure that will provide information about their historical relevance,” the official maintained.
Civic officials said that besides these 16 pyaus, BMC has taken up another standalone project of repairing an existing pyau on Sandhurst Road.
“This pyau was restored once in 2015-16 but due to lack of maintenance the structure became non-operational. Now we are again restoring it and this time the BMC will also take up responsibility of maintaining the structure,” an official said.
The pyaus in Mumbai (then Bombay) started becoming dormant during 1960s after BMC introduced metered water supply that would limit continuous water flow from these structures. As a result due to change in demography, many of these structures were considered a hindrance to development projects. And to make way for infrastructure projects like road widening many such pyaus were demolished.
Besides human beings, horses that would pull carts were also dependent on pyaus for drinking water, but with the advent of automobiles, dependency on horse-carts reduced in Mumbai, leading to discontinued usage of pyaus.
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