Mir Alam Tank

The Mir Alam tank lies to the south-west of the old city of Hyderabad.¹² It is named after its builder, Mir Alam, minister of the Asaf Jahi Nizam Sikandar Jah.¹²

The dam

The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 calls it “another magnificent sheet of water, 8 miles in circumference”.¹ Its dam “consists of a series of 21 semicircular retaining walls with their convex side facing the water”.¹ “Its total length is 1,120 yards, and it was constructed by French engineers in the Nizam’s service”.¹

The gazetteer says Mir Alam built the tank, a baradari (pavilion) and other buildings “out of the prize-money which fell to his share after the fall of Seringapatam”.¹ It adds that “the dam alone cost 8 lakhs”.¹

Bilgrami’s account

Syed Ali Asgar Bilgrami wrote a survey of the city’s monuments in 1927.³⁴ He describes the bund (dam) as “a unique piece of architecture” of 21 large granite arches with semicircular projections.³⁴ He dates it to the reign of Sikandar Jah, AH 1221 (1806; AH is the Islamic way of counting years).³⁴

According to Bilgrami, two grandsons of Mir Alam supervised the building.³⁴ They were Saeed-ud-daula and Mir Muhammad Ali Khan, sons of Khalilullah Khan.³⁴ He gives the cost of tank and bund together as Rs 8,00,000.³⁴ He repeats that Mir Alam paid for it from his prize money.³⁴ This was after Mir Alam had led the Nizam’s forces against Tipu Sultan in 1799.³⁴

An inscription on a reservoir stone of black basalt gives the date.³ See the Mir Alam tank inscription.

Water for the city

Bilgrami says that after the tank was finished “the whole city of Hyderabad abounded in underground canals of running drinking water”.³⁴ This eased the people’s sufferings from scarcity of water.³⁴ By 1927, however, “owing to the construction of Osman Sagar the importance of this tank has been greatly reduced”.³⁴ See Osman Sagar.

The gazetteer of 1909 says that the city and suburbs were then “amply supplied with water” from this tank and the Husain Sagar.¹ The Mir Alam tank was still among the works maintained by the public works department of the state in 1912–13.⁵

Campbell (1898) describes a view over the city from the west.⁶ In it he mentions “the picturesque Mir Alum Tank” with the Falaknuma palace on a hill beyond it.⁶

Footnotes

1. Imperial Gazetteer of India: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 118 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. A. Claude Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 127 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

3. Syed Ali Asgar Bilgrami, Landmarks of the Deccan (1927), p. 106 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹²

4. Bilgrami, Landmarks of the Deccan (1927), p. 107 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

5. Report on the Administration of H.H. the Nizam’s Dominions for 1322 Fasli (1912–13) (1915), p. 48 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

6. Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 245 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²