Place · masonry dam & terraced garden · India
Krishna Raja Sagara and Brindavan Gardens
Also known as KRS, Kannambadi Katte, Krishnarajasagara Dam, Kannambadi reservoir, Brindavan Gardens
Krishna Raja Sagara is the dam and reservoir on the Kaveri below its meeting with the Hemavati and Lakshmana Tirtha, sanctioned by Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV and designed by M. Visvesvaraya, whose 48 automatic gates regulate its surplus. Begun in 1911 and inaugurated in 1932, it was built largely in surki lime mortar after wartime shortages cut off imported cement, and it supplies drinking water to Mysuru and most of Bengaluru. The terraced Brindavan Gardens below it were laid out from 1927 to 1932.
- Date
- 1911–1932
- Function
- Water & infrastructure
- Patron dynasty
- Wadiyar
- Material
- surki (lime and burnt-brick) masonry
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 12.425, 76.572
Worth knowing
Building it took decades of argument with the Madras Presidency over the Kaveri's water; arbitration in 1914 and an agreement in 1924 settled it, and the Karnataka–Tamil Nadu dispute still descends from those terms. The gardens' musical fountain is set to songs.
About the place
Placed at the dam, using the coordinates on the Wikipedia article; the gardens adjoin it.
Sources differ on completion: the masonry was largely finished in 1931, and the inauguration is usually given as 1932.
Connections (5)
- BuiltM. Visvesvaraya
M. Visvesvaraya, made chief engineer of Mysore in November 1909 after his predecessor drowned surveying the site, designed the Kannambadi reservoir, submitted its first project report on 5 May 1911 and pressed it on a reluctant government. He fitted the surplus weir with 48 automatic gates, a mechanism he had patented about a decade earlier for Lake Fife near Khadakvasla, and as Diwan from 1912 he saw the project through the dispute with the Madras Presidency.
- PatronageKrishnaraja Wadiyar IV
Maharaja Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV sanctioned the dam during a famine, with the state treasury already strained, and it was named after him. In Visvesvaraya's memoir, sanction was delayed until the maharaja, noticing his engineer's discouragement, told him not to be hasty and within a week approved every proposal without changing a detail. The order to begin was issued on 11 October 1911 with 81 lakh rupees set aside, and the cost later rose to about 1.03 crore.
- Located atKaveri
The Krishna Raja Sagara dam crosses the Kaveri just below its meeting with the Hemavati and Lakshmana Tirtha in Mandya district. Building it needed the consent of the downstream Madras Presidency under an 1892 agreement; arbitration in 1914 allowed the full 124-foot height and an agreement of 1924 fixed the reservoir's rules. When that agreement lapsed in 1974 the modern Kaveri water dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu began, and released water still flows on to Mettur.
- Site adjacencyMysuru
The dam and the Brindavan Gardens lie about twelve kilometres from Mysuru, and the reservoir is the main source of drinking water for Mysuru and Mandya districts and for nearly all of Bengaluru, which with other districts receive roughly 2.1 TMC ft a month. Laid out between 1927 and 1932 under Diwan Mirza Ismail to designs by the German landscape gardener Gustav Krumbiegel, the gardens draw close to two million visitors a year.
- Site adjacencySrirangapatna / Srirangapattana
The Krishna Raja Sagara dam and its Brindavan Gardens lie upstream of Srirangapatna on the Kaveri, and Wikipedia counts the gardens among the major attractions of Srirangapatna. The island town, the Wodeyar capital before it became Haidar Ali's and Tipu Sultan's fortress, sits in the river below the dam, so the reservoir that Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV sanctioned in 1911 now regulates the water that once served as the moat of Tipu's walls.
Sources
Wikipedia, "Krishna Raja Sagara", "Brindavan Gardens".
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