This reservoir was created in 1910 by the former Baroda State. It is located in a semi-arid agricultural landscape and it is surrounded by wheat and paddy fields and villages. The wetland is internationally important for its birdlife as it provides wintering ground to migratory waterbirds, including over 80 species that migrate on the Central Asian Flyway. They include some threatened or near-threatened species such as the endangered Pallas’s fish-eagle (Haliaeetus leucoryphus), the vulnerable common pochard (Aythya ferina), and the near-threatened Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus), grey-headed fish-eagle (Icthyophaga ichthyaetus) and ferruginous duck (Aythya nyroca). In addition the red-crested pochard (Netta rufina), a duck which is otherwise rare in Western India, is regularly recorded here during winter. Resident birds include the vulnerable river tern (Sterna aurantia) and sarus crane (Grus antigone) and the near-threatened black-necked stork (Ephippiorhynchus asiaticus). Almost 46,000 individual birds were recorded during a mid-winter waterbird census conducted in 2020. The Site provides a global example of how a wetland originally created for irrigation has come to serve as an important waterbird habitat and hub for ecotourism and nature education.