Open Well at Satish Dhawan Park

1.0 Overview and Background

Satish Dhawan Park is located in North Bangalore in Tatanagar. The park is named after Padma Vibhushan Prof. Satish Dhawan, Director - IISc, Secretary - Department of Space, Chairman - ISRO.   The park is spread over 2.3 acre.  There are many trees and plants in the park.  The park comes under the administration of BBMP.  They have a caretaker who maintains the park.  Resident Welfare Association, Tatanagar are closely involved in the maintenance of the park as well.

Satish Dhawan Park

The park is located at 6th A Cross, ​​Tatanagar, Devinagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560092.  The water table at the park is high. There is a pond at the lowest part of the park. There are around 4 borewells.  Source of water for the park used to be Borewell.  However, these borewells stopped functioning due to silting issues.  Tanker water is being used in the park to water the plants.  RWA members started exploring different options for water sources. The RWA in consultation with residents Dr. Mohan Kumar, Dr. Sivakumar Babu and Biome decided to dig a well of 4ft diameter and 30ft depth and utilise the water from the well in the garden.

2. Digging an open well

The place for digging the open well was identified next to the pond near the gazebo. Well digger Ramakrishna and team worked on the well.  They hit water around 7ft.  They continued digging till 15 ft.  At this depth they hit soft soil which was collapsing. They had to stop going deeper as there was a scare of the structure collapsing.  Jelly and concrete rings were installed to give support and stability to the structure. A 2HP submersible pump was installed to pump the water from the well to use it in the garden.

Inauguration  of the well-digging

Well digging in progress

Water hit at 7ft bgl

Inserting the concrete rings

Here is a video of the soil collapsing at 15 ft.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a26GOAbGEO4bthjc9xkBVtKRmz5dae1E/view?usp=sharing

Filling the space where soil collapsed with jelly and placing the rings

Fixing the plumbing  and motor for pumping water. A safety grill at ground level

Completed well with a grill on top

Water being pumped and used in the garden

3. Observations

When all the water from the well was pumped out it was observed that the well required about 8 hours to recuperate ie. time taken by the percolating water to fill the well to a particular level  noted.  

The well has about 2500L of water.  The 2 HP pump requires 20 minutes to pump 2500 litres of water.  

Units of electricity used for pumping 2 x .746 x 20/60 = 0.5 units of power. 

This pumps out about 2500 litres or 2.5 kl of water.  

Cost of power at Rs 5.50 per unit hence cost per kilolitre of water  0.5 x 5.50 / 2.5 = Rs 1.10 per kilolitre. 

This water from the well can be pumped to the external storage twice in a day and used in the garden. 

Open wells help manage the shallow aquifer by being structures that can both draw water from the shallow aquifer as well as serve as structures that can recharge the ground. Open wells with water are also the source of water with the lowest amount of energy required to source the water. More details about Bangalore and its open wells can be found here http://bengaluru.urbanwaters.in/our-open-well-heritage-510/

World Water Day -2022

 Biome Environmental Trust was invited to participate in an event organised by BWSSB and KSCST on the 10th Anniversary of Sri.M Visvesvaraya RWH Theme Park.  The event was organised in association with Indian Plumbing Association-Bangalore Chapter, Bangalore Apartments Federation, Bengaluru on 22 March, 2022

A statue of Sri.M Visvesvaraya was inaugurated at the Theme park.  Technical session was also held. CGWB, State Ground Water board, BAF, BIOME, Indian Plumbing Association, BWSSB and KSCST were part of the technical session. It was a well organised event with interesting discussion.  It was interesting to note that KSCST has identified about 14000 Kalyani's in Karnataka, many of which require rejuvenation.  BWSSB, KSCST, BAF and BIOME shared some interesting success stories of sustainable management practices by apartments and layouts in Bangalore.  Few pictures from the event are shared below.

BIOME Team Meeting on Feb 16th 2022

Hey! Here are the cheerful stories from BIOME team meeting which was held at Lalbagh on 16th February 2022. It was the first offline team meeting post two long pandemic years. We had a new team member Neelima, Srinivas who said we had met three times offline and corrected himself to online, Shivanand travelling for 30 kms, Rakshitha staying a previous day in pg et all... 

Lalbagh Botanical Garden was chosen for the offline meeting as all of us would get to see the old open wells which have been rejuvenated from us with the support of the donors. Of course, Suma is our Lalbagh person:) She anchored the rejuvenation process and she walked us through the wells with Well Digger Ramakrishna and team. When we BIOME are together who could stop us from capturing us together; the joyful faces:)

Shubha says "Folks let us get a good picture with whatever poses and combinations for our display pictures:) Suma is our formal or informal Photographer nahi Photo instructor;) She says "all of you keep your right leg front and hold your hand behind, look away from the cam" and what not! 

Look, here we go with our group picture, a community pic with our beloved well diggers

Ramakrishna is full on with the technical details on the well rejuvenation. Shivanand and Himanshu would always had a question more to ask and our RK would start answering by saying Saaaar en gotta ;)

Now look carefully - eyes wide open. All of these are from RK's pocket, the ones he found in the Lalbagh well during the rejuvenation. The oldest being 1930 and the latest being 2011. 

 

Ramakrishna is sharing his experience in well digging and gratitude towards Vishu sir.

The care taker Irappa alias Munikrishna is at the lake from 1979 narrates the memories of wells at Lalbagh beautifully.

We found a shade under a very famous 200 year old tree. Shubha started the formal meeting from give the gist of all the projects that BIOME is engaged. All the team members spoke about their projects and anything and everything which is close to their hearts and energizes the team. Himanshu's Frisbee from the last meeting was well cherished. Finally, we all were more than happy for chasing our passion for water and thanking BIOME for flexible work schedule and most efficient outcomes. Shubha missed Avinash and Vishu sir at this moment. 

Hold on, our meeting is followed by yummy lunch at MTR. Kosambari, Masala dosa, Poori, Bisibelebath, curd rice, fruits with classic ice cream, beeda et all to treat our taste buds and overfull our tummies. 

The plate and tummies were full yet our untold conversations finding way for the next meeting....

- Rakshitha 

Access Livelihoods enterprise visit to Cubbon Park

Access Livelihoods requested Biome for an enterprise visit for their batch of students from the postgraduate course in Social Entrepreneurship (Transforming India Initiative) to understand the issue of water sustainability, as part of their reflection workshop. The visit was conducted at Cubbon Park on March 10, 2022, and was anchored by Suma Rao of Biome. 

Water Management in Ittina Anai Apartment

Ittina Anai is located in Kempapura, Yemalur, Bellandur. It was constructed in 2006. The apartment spreads in an area of 1 acre and 13 guntas; it has four blocks with 72 flats and about 168 residents. Ittina Anai does not have a BWSSB Cauvery water connection. The apartment is not planning to get the Cauvery water connection as they perceive the advance deposit is higher and the quantity of water supply is not adequate. 

The “2500 Recharge Wells for Bellandur” campaign also focused on reusing the treated wastewater to reduce the stress on freshwater demand. Ittina Anai apartment stands as the best instance for refurbishing the Sewage Treatment Plant and using the Treated Wastewater (TWW) for all purposes including drinking. They also harvest every drop of rainwater falling in their rooftops and the pavements in sumps and recharge wells.  

 

Use of treated wastewater for potable purposes 

Ittina Anai apartment had a Sewage Treatment Plant which was set up by the builder which followed the technology of the Activated Sludge Process. The capacity of the STP was 40 KLD. The builder had also provided a dual plumbing system where treated wastewater was reused for flushing and gardening. Eventually, the in-flow into the STP exceeded its built capacity and treatment efficiency was reduced. This caused the issues of turbidity, odor, color etc. The residents moved away from using TWW for flushing. The excess treated wastewater was led into stormwater drains. 

The RWA became part of the “2500 RWs for Bellandur” campaign and put efforts in the direction of water conservation. The RWA came forward to refurbish the STP. The STP was upgraded to an SBR (Sequential Batch Reactor) and increased its capacity to 90 KLD. The TWW is Cleaner, odor-free and crystal clear and the STP is operated to its fullest capacity. The TWW was again reused for flushing, floor cleaning and gardening etc. Mr Aditya Rao from the RWA took a lead in resuing the TWW for potable purposes through Tertiary treatment with RO.  The TWW is passed through the Water Treatment Plant and is currently being used for potable purposes. Initially, the residents were not convinced with the idea and gradually accepted it after they witnessed the clear water quality. Currently, there is no excess TWW generated in the apartment, it has achieved Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD). 

 

Rainwater harvesting 

The apartment did not face any water scarcity. The RWA came forward to dig the RWs for future water sustenance. The rainwater from all 4 blocks and the paved area is being directed to storage sumps and six recharge wells placed strategically throughout the apartment. The 4 recharge wells are 4 ft wide and 34 ft deep and the remaining 2 recharge wells are 5 ft wide and 25 ft deep. The apartment is dependent on 2 borewells; one is the major borewell(one was decommissioned) which was yielding 1.5 inches of water. After digging the recharge wells the yield has gone up to 3.5 to 4 inches. 

“We have achieved ZLD where not a drop of water comes into our campus and not a drop goes out of our campus!! By revamping and upgrading our STP we have experienced that we are able to reuse all our TWW and donot discharge even a single drop into the drains. This has further reduced our dependence on our Borewell and has delisted in us using the Borewell lesser and thereby saving about 25% of our electricity costs by way of running the Borewell for fewer hours. The recharge wells have increased the yield of the Borewell from 1.5 to 3.5 inches and this too means that we are getting more liters of water in lesser Borewell run time. Our water table rose from 180 feet to 80 feet in just one season of rains. We did our RWs in 2018-19 under the 2500 RWs challenge in Bellandur.”                                                                                            - Treasurer, RWA

Biome Trust gets second place in FICCI Water Awards!

Biome Environmental Trust registered for the 9th Edition of the FICCI Water Awards under the NGO category. The case study we submitted was titled ‘Million Wells for Bengaluru’ campaign. Shubha made a presentation to the jury that was led by Dr Mihir Shah. Biome Trust was awarded joint second place in the NGO category. 

FICCI organised the 7th India Industry Water Conclave virtually on March 2-3, 2022. The award ceremony was held during the inaugural session of the Conclave on March 2. The video of the ceremony is here 

The awards ceremony starts at 1:09:28 - and we received our award at 1:17:11.

On the second day, Shubha was invited to speak. The video of the second day is here 

Her talk is at 3:48:41. 

We thank our funders, donors, partners, and well-wishers for their unstinting support!

Open well in Bengaluru South

 A resident of Bengaluru South chose not to drill a borewell to construct a new house. He learnt the groundwater table is high and would hit water if he digs an open well. He engaged well digger  Venkat (Ph: 93536 39969) and dug an open well. The well is 2.5ft in diameter. The well hit water at 3 ft, and was dug up to 15 ft depth.