You may very soon know if the groundwater in your area is potable or not as Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre (KSRSAC) is testing water samples from all parts of the state to assess their potability.
Director of the centre Dr D K Prabhuraj said, “National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC), one of the units of ISRO, has entrusted us the work of preparing report on water quality in different parts of the state. We are collecting water samples from remote places where water quality has not been assessed till now. We are hopeful of completing the project in another three months.”
Refusing to divulge the details of the quality of the water samples tested till now, Prabhuraj said that the report will be revealed to people only after it is presented to the National Remote Sensing Centre. According to Prabhuraj, the centre will obtain reports related water samples which have already been tested from two lakh different areas of the state through different government agencies and it will collect and test the water samples from the areas in which the water samples were never tested till date.
Water not tested in 600 areas
The Centre has already identified over 600 areas in which water has never been tested and is in the process of identifying some more.
The water samples will be analysed on the basis of five parameters - pH levels to access the alkalinity or acidic contents in it, hardness, nitrate contents, fluoride and iron contents - to ascertain their potability. It will start preparing the report with the necessary statistics only after collecting all the required data, he said.