Water may be a renewable resource but that does not mean that it can be exploited beyond a limit. That limit is set, in the Indian sub-continent, by the rate of replenishment of water through yearly monsoon rains. This cardinal principle is, however, being disregarded in the case of groundwater in many parts of the country, where it has already become scarce due to reckless use for agriculture and industry. This is worrisome; especially considering that over 60 per cent of the irrigated area that accounts for a bulk of the marketable surplus of agricultural produce relies on groundwater for crop irrigation. Besides, nearly 1,000 industrial units, including bulk water consumers like beverage-making plants, are located in areas where the groundwater aquifer is nearing exhaustion. India’s total annual groundwater extraction for various uses has been reckoned at a whopping 210 billion cubic metres, which is the highest in the world. Worse, the maximum withdrawals are in areas where the annual recharge through precipitation is inadequate to fully make up for this loss.
The Planning Commission has woken up to this alarming state of affairs and has made a presentation to the prime minister. The immediate worry is about the decline in the water table to dangerously low levels in several agriculture-intensive tracts in the South and, more particularly, the North-West, which was the cradle of the Green Revolution. Time was when water was available in abundance in these tracts. The Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) has already notified 65 areas warranting urgent regulation of groundwater exploitation. These are in the states of Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat and Rajasthan in the North, and Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Maharashtra, Karnataka and even Kerala in the South. As many as 43 of these areas are notified as ‘critical’, where water withdrawals should in no case be allowed to exceed recharge.
Apart from the decline in groundwater levels, unabated pollution of this water due to leaching of toxins from pesticides, fertilisers and industrial and municipal wastes into this subsurface aquifer is exacerbating the problem by making it unfit for many uses. A key reason for this indiscriminate tapping of groundwater through bore-wells is an archaic British-era legislation that grants an individual full rights over water underneath his land. Those who framed this statute did not, obviously, realise that underground water is a dynamic resource. The impact of its excessive removal at one site is bound to be felt in the neighbourhood as well. The Centre, no doubt, has drafted and circulated to the States a model bill to regulate and control groundwater extraction, but, most States have so far disregarded it. Even the few that have amended their laws have not provided adequate teeth to the new legal instruments.
The Planning Commission has called for effective monitoring and regulation of groundwater withdrawals, seeking a user charge on it, and ending free or unmetered supply of power for pumping groundwater for crop irrigation. For industries, it has mooted a volumetric pricing regime. These suggestions conform to the National Water Policy adopted in 2002, which had in fact recommended water pricing aimed at making users appreciate its scarcity value. Now that the Centre is revisiting this policy, the new document should state this objective even more forcefully and, additionally, suggest ways and means of ensuring its implementation by the States. India desperately needs action to recharge subsurface water aquifers through water conservation.
