Introduction

Jaipur City was established by Sawai Jai Singh in the year 1727 AD. Earlier the capital of kingdom of Maharaja Jai Singh was Amer. The 'Kachawa' Rajas ruled Amer for more than 700 years. Raja Sawai Jai Singh, was a great lover of astrology, architect & planning. He developed an idea of constructing a modern city, now known as Jaipur. In his endeavor he was aided by his able adviser 'Vidhyadhar'. The original idea was to divide the city in nine squares which were called 'Chokries'. The roads were right angle to each other and squares were uniform in size and shape. The elevation of buildings and shops facing main roads were uniform and only pink color was allowed for coloring exterior portion of buildings, thus making Jaipur popular as 'Pink City'

Historical Importance of Bawaries (Step Wells)

The density of Amer City was quite high. For taking care of water needs of the residents of Amer, number of wells & Bawaries (Step Wells) were dug apart from large ponds. In Amer, 'Maotha Sagar' Bandh Talab etc. were constructed in order to maintain the water level in other wells & Bawaries. Main bawaries of Amer are 'Panna ? Meena', 'Chhela bawari', 'Thttar bawari', 'Naku bawari', Sarai bawari,. 'Vijay bagh bawari', & 'Teli bawari' On the pattern of bawaries of Amer, the king of Jaipur ? Sawai Jai Singh got constructed many bawaries in various colonies of Jaipur. These bawaries were constructed in the low-lying areas & basins of hills in order to collect the water and form a large catchment area. The famous bawaries constructed in that area were 'Kala Hanuman Ki Bawari' , Two bawaries of Gurjar Ghati namely 'Kalyan ji temple bawari' & near 'AtreyaSchool', in Jai Singhpura Khore, near chullgiri, 7 bawaries of Galta, 'Khon Nagoriyas', 'Jagga ki bawari', Yagnashala ki bawari', 'Parsashramdwara ki bawari' etc., The main purpose of these bawaries was to enable continuous water supply for residents of these areas and also to maintain water level by action of seepage.

Need for renovation of Bawaries (Step Wells)

Rajasthan known as Desert State of India is suffer from scarcity of water. Earlier the problem of lack of water availability was limited to western part of the state only but due to poor rainfall during last few years, the problem of scarcity of water has engulfed whole of the state. The polluted environment, excessive drilling of tube wells, cutting of trees and exponential rise in consumption level of water has further worsened the situation. Being the capital of the state, the Jaipur City has always been politically active. Due to rapid urbanization, the demand of water supply has increased many fold. The area of Jaipur is now spread in 625 Sq. Km as compared to 20 Sq. Km about 50 years ago. Large number of new colonies have come up. The people have indiscriminately dug new tube wells, which has reduced the water level drastically. The major water supply source of Jaipur 'Ramgarh Dam' is hardly capable of supplying 5-10% of total population of Jaipur City.