Bhojtal, formerly known as Upper Lake is a large lake which lies on the Western side of the capital city of Madhya Pradesh, Bhopal. It is a major source of drinking water for the residents of the city, serving around 40% of the residents with nearly 30 million imperial gallons (140,000 m3) of water per day. Bada talaab, along with the nearby Chhota Talaab, meaning small lake in Hindi, constitute Bhoj Wetland, which is now a Ramsar site.<br /><br />Bhojtal is said to have been built by the Parmara Raja Bhoj during his tenure as a king of Malwa (1005--1055). He is also said to have established the city of Bhopal (also named after him, then as Bhojpal) to secure the eastern frontier of his kingdom. There is a legend why the built the lake. Once king Bhoj suffered from skin disease and all Vaidyas (Doctor in English) failed to cure him. Then, one day a saint told the king to build a tank to combine 365 tributaries and then have a bath in it to wipe out the skin disease. Bhoj called upon his engineers to build up a huge tank. They spotted a place near river Betwa, which was 32 km away from Bhopal. It was found that it has only 359 tributaries. A Gond Commander Kalia fulfilled this shortage. He then gave the address of an invisible river. After merging the tributaries of this river the number 365 was completed.<br />The lake was created by constructing an earthen dam across the Kolans River. An eleven gate dam called the Bhadbhada dam was constructed at Bhadbhada in 1965 at the southeast corner of the Lake, and now controls the outflow to the river Kaliasote.<br />The lake was known as the Upper Lake or Bada Talab ("Big Pond") until March 2011, when the BJP-led state government renamed it to Bhojtaal. A huge statue of Raja Bhoj was also installed on a pillar on one corner of the lake.<br /><br />Bhopal is the capital of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of Bhopal District and Bhopal Division. The city was the capital of the former Bhopal State. Bhopal is known as the City of Lakes for its various natural as well as artificial lakes and is also one of the greenest cities in India. The city attracted international attention after the Bhopal disaster, when a Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide manufacturing plant leaked a mixture of deadly gases including methyl isocyanate on the intervening night of 2 / 3 December 1984, leading to the worst industrial disaster in the history of industrialization and a loss of thousands of lives. Many more were rendered sick and have been facing chronic health problems such as psychological and neurological disabilities, blindness, skin, vision and breathing disorders and the new born children still suffer from serious birth defects, even after generations.The soil and ground water near the factory site has been contaminated by the toxic wastes and other chemicals still leaking out from the factory. The Indian government, however, maintains that no such pollution has taken place or that any such toxins are even present at the site. Since then, Bhopal has been a center of protests and campaigns which have been joined by people from across the globe.<br /><br />Source - Wikipedia<br /><br />This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at wfi @ vsnl.com and admin@wildfilmsindia.com.
