Geological Survey of India is a nodal agency for Earthscience studies and Mineral Exploration. The current global trend before geological surveys is to foster harmony between 'wealth creation' and preservation of 'ecology and environment'. The ambit of earth's resources extends beyond the utilitarian extraction of exhaustible minerals from the earth, and impinges on every aspect of development. Understanding the dynamic phenomena and geologic forces on the surface is increasingly becoming an area of focal concern in sustainable development. Urban planning, heritage conservation, multidimensional construction activity, landslides and erosion, floods and silting, earthquakes, waste disposal and water supply are all such activities (apart from regular geoscientific research) in which geoscientific factors need to be considered right from the planning stage. These are the arenas where GSI has been contributing to a great extent over the years and continues to do so.