TALLAH TANK ... Quenching City's Thirst for Over a Century !!

"WATER WATER EVERYWHERE, NOR ANY DROP TO DRINK", at least 100 years before this Samuel Coleridge poem, Englishmen felt in the same way when they arrived in Calcutta in the late 17th century. Various reports of English authorities of that time suggests that in 1706 there were only 17 water bodies in Calcutta, on which the native population was entirely dependent for its water supply, in addition to Hooghly river. But there were scarcity of pure drinking water due to multipurpose usage of these water bodies by the native residents. The tanks were so polluted that the British were not ready to accept them as the hygienic source to quench their thirst. Ultimately in 1709, Lal Dighi or the Great Tank was renovated. It was one of the purest fount of drinking water and catered the needs of British people for another 100 years.