While revealing the alarming state of India’s groundwater aquifers, a World Bank report has also pointed out how communities in drought-prone areas of Andhra Pradesh are successfully leading the way to sustainable groundwater use.
Deep wells and Prudence: Towards pragmatic action for addressing groundwater overexploitation, is a detailed report on the critical state of India’s groundwater situation, the socio-economic reasons of such overuse as also the policy framework which has not worked and new strategies that have shown results and could be replicated elsewhere. The report was released here today.
Giving the extent of overuse of groundwater, the report says groundwater supports about 60 per cent of irrigated agriculture and more than 80 per cent of rural and urban water supplies. At the present level of overuse, in another 15 years, an estimated 60 per cent of India’s groundwater blocks will be in a critical condition, the report cautions. Already, 29 per cent of groundwater blocks are semi-critical, critical or over-exploited, says the report.
It adds that one solution has been found in the villages of Andhra Pradesh, where farmers have “voluntarily reduced their groundwater use and still safeguarded their drinking water supply and crops”. This, the report says, has been made possible through farmer education.
“This project has made barefoot hydrogeologists of people who never went to school,” said lead author of the report and World Bank’s senior water resources specialist in India, Sanjay Pahuja. Farmers are extremely knowledgeable. However, “they have not had more than 30 years to understand groundwater,” he told journalists.
The report is an outcome of World Bank’s study and technical assistance initiative on groundwater management in India. Key central and state government institutions are collaborating partners.
Analysing the factors behind the exponential increase in groundwater use, the report points out that groundwater allows the users more control over quantity and timing of supply. Therefore, it is linked with higher productivity. The crop water productivity of groundwater irrigated farms is almost twice that of surface-water irrigated farms. Also, use of groundwater is a response to the poor service delivery of surface water systems, as in urban water supply.
However, making the user community the primary custodian of groundwater helps bring in self-regulation of groundwater use.
