Barav still intact in Bhadrakali area

Deshdoot Times Special
Barav still intact in Bhadrakali area

NASHIK: In the past, water was stored in a stepwell, commonly known as Barav. Even today, the construction of these stepwells are a masterpiece of ancient architecture and art. Over time, these stepwells are disappearing. However, in some places, the stepwells are being preserved as an ancient heritage.

There are many ancient stepwells in the Nashik district. One of them is near former mayor Vinayak Pande’s office, a Barav in the Bhadrakali area. This stepwell is still intact with a large stone arch, 22 steps, and 24 hours of clean water. Millions of litres of water is siphoned out of this Barav every day.

This keeps the water clean and the river flowing. The water level here does not decrease even if it is pumped daily. Former mayor Vinayak Pande is still preserving this historical heritage is noteworthy.

Last week, Rohan Kale, who is travelling all over Maharashtra to explore Barav, visited the office of the daily Deshdoot. They are working on finding and conservation of the stepwells all over Maharashtra. News of Rohan’s explorations was recently published in Deshdoot. After reading this news, former mayor of Nashik and Shiv Sena leader Vinayak Pande contacted Deshdoot and said that there is an old stepwell near his office in Bhadrakali. A team of Deshdoot reached Pande’s office to find out about the ancient stepwell. Daily Deshdoot and Deshdoot Times Executive Editor Dr Vaishali Balajiwale learned about this ancient stepwell through discussions with Pande.

This time, Vinayak Pande said, the fourth generation in our family is watching over the preservation of this stepwell. In the past, if there was no water in the houses of the citizens of the area, the citizens used to fetch the water from this stepwell for drinking. Since then, urbanization has gradually increased, so citizens have started using the water for housework. “We have installed a pump here to keep the stepwell water clean regularly and siphoned out millions of litres of water every day”, informed Pande.

"We have been celebrating Rangpanchami for the last 20 to 22 years. That’s when we came up with the idea of conservation of this stepwell. We cleaned about 7 to 8 trucks of silt and muck from the stepwell. We don’t know much about the history of this stepwell. We don’t even know the depths and length of this step well. Some say that this stepwell is spread till the Shingada Talav, some say it goes till Anandavali, but we don’t know how deep it is. But we are determined to preserve this historic heritage."- Vinayak Pande, former mayor

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