Meeting with Dr. Sawkar, GSI

With an intent to understand any groundwater studies undertaken in Sarjapura road in specific and Bangalore in general, we met Dr. Sawkar of the Geological Society of India. The GSI releases monthly journals which features peer reviewed articles covering Earth Systems Science. Dr. Sawkar explained the Bangalore water supply situation and how multi pronged efforts are being carried out to ensure sufficient supply for the ever increasing population of the city. From bringing waters from far off west flowing rivers to recharging of groundwater table using storm water flows, Dr. Sawkar explained the different scenarios.

Dr. Sawkar was lamenting on the fact that there was no specific body at the state level to deal with water. Though the Mines and geology department was the overarching body responsible for water as well, more often than not minerals garnered priority over water.

Though no specific study was carried out in the Sarjapura road area, Dr. Sawkar expressed interest in the proposed participative study which will have WIPRO, Biome, ACWADAM (Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management) and Mapunity as partners. He in fact suggested enrolling schools and colleges to be ideal entities for data collection which can contribute to the study.
Dr. Sawkar suggested that a study on the groundwater of Bangalore with data from the 30 observation wells spread across the city which has been published as a research paper in the book “Bangalore:Water Problems of the Fastest Growing City” could be a good starting point in terms of secondary data on Bangalore’s ground water.