Heritage Walk on medieval underground aqua duct structures in Bidar

Govindan Kutty, groundwater expert, takes a group of young people on aHeritage Walk of Karez on Sunday. Team Yuva, a Bidar based NGO, organised the walk. Photo: Special Arrangement.

A group of youngsters woke up early on Sunday to take a guided trip to rediscover an underground medieval era rain water harvesting structure and to realize the need to conserve it.

The trip was to trace the Karez or the Surang Bavi system on the outskirts of Bidar.

City-based NGO Team, Yuva invited college students, historians and mid-career professionals to ‘show and tell’ the people of Bidar about their rich cultural heritage.

Govindan Kutty, groundwater expert from Calicut University took the group around the mouth of the Karez near Siddeshwar temple in Naubad and traced all the 22 air vents and the Bag-E – Hamaam, where the Karez is supposed to end. All through the tour, he and other resource persons stressed on the need to conserve the rare water structure using methods like afforestation, protection of lakes and regulating sand and laterite soil mining.

The group walked and crawled through the caves and air vents built on the Karez gallery where rain water is collected and filtered through layers of laterite rock.

He said that the underground aqua duct was built exactly on the lineament fractures that store ground water. The medieval era engineers must have decided this looking at the trees that grow atop water lines, or the kind of rocks and soils seen around the fractures, he said.

Professor Kutty gave details of the quality of workmanship that led to carving such massive structures. Square-shaped air vents were cut out to help workers decide on the direction of the Karez line. Beds were carved on the wall for workers to rest between long working hours. Stands were cut out to keep lamps and water cans, he said, showing some protrusions.

He said that “Rapid urbanisation is a threat to the structure. People are building houses above the Karez, without realising that the structures could collapse. Secondly, several air vents are being used has garbage pits, thirdly, trees on the watershed areas are being cut rapidly and water bodies like the Naubad tank are being destroyed due to sand and top-soil mining. If the civil society and stake holders do not stop these measures immediately, we will run out of ground water and lose an important part of our cultural heritage”.

Vinay Malge, coordinator, Team Yuva, Shivakumar Uppe, professor of history in the government first grade college, Rotary club leaders like Ramesh Gada, Chetan Megur and Satish Biradar, advocate S. H Patil, and others were present.