Saving India's groundwater

Tubewells, which were once seen as the solution to India's water problem, have tragically ended up becoming the main cause of water crisis

Over 70 per cent of India’s water comes from below the ground. India is, by far, the largest and fastest growing consumer of groundwater in the world. China and the US are in second and third positions, respectively, but India uses more than the two of them put together. Over the last four decades, around 84 per cent of the addition to irrigated area came from groundwater. Most of this was from deep drilling of tubewells or borewells, which are the single largest source of irrigation, as also drinking water, in both rural and urban India.

Tubewells, which were once seen