India is running out of water, even when there appears to be enough. This contradiction characterises the country’s ongoing groundwater crisis. The true scarcity is concealed beneath in cities that flood with a single rainstorm and towns that sit next to full reservoirs. Aquifers are disappearing, water levels are sinking, and the logic of extraction remains virtually unregulated.
The crisis isn’t dramatic. It does not erupt like a cyclone or burn like a wildfire. It recedes slowly and invisibly until the well is dry.
India uses more groundwater than any other country, even more than the US and China put together. It provides drinking water for about 85 per cent of people in rural areas and irrigation for more than 60 per cent of people. People used to see this dependence as a success story, a quiet revolution that freed farmers from the uncertainty of monsoon rains. But what used to be empowering has turned into overreach.
Over the past 20 years, groundwater levels in Punjab, Haryana, and parts of Rajasthan have dropped a lot. Pumps have gotten stronger, tube wells have gotten deeper, and extraction has become stronger. What used to be sustainable is now harmful on a different level. But the illusion stays: as long as water flows from the tap or borewell, the problem seems far away.
The main reason for the problem is a political economy that promotes overuse. Free or heavily subsidised energy for farming has led to too much groundwater pumping. Even in areas with little water, crops that need a lot of water, like paddy and sugarcane, are still the most common. There are rules in place, but they are not always followed, and when they are, it is often because of politics.
Managing groundwater is harder than managing rivers. It is spread out, in one place, and mostly hidden. Ownership is inextricably linked to land, allowing individuals to extract a shared resource. The result is a common tragedy that happens millions of times in India’s fields.
At best, reform efforts have been half-hearted. Metering farm electricity, controlling borewell drilling, and encouraging crop diversification have all faced opposition, often from the same groups that governments rely on. It turns out that water politics and electoral politics are closely related.
People in rural India collect groundwater to stay alive, but people in urban India do it for convenience and often too much. Groundwater plays a crucial role in supplying cities such as Delhi, Bengaluru, and Chennai. Even in areas with municipal water systems, private borewells and tanker services flourish. This has resulted in an unregulated, parallel water economy.
Groundwater levels in Bengaluru, a city that used to be known for its lakes, have dropped a lot. The “Day Zero” crisis in Chennai in 2019 showed how weak the city was for a short time, but people quickly forgot about it when the rains came back.
Flooding in cities, ironically, makes things worse. When cities grow, they cover up natural recharge areas like lakes, wetlands, and open spaces. Instead of going back into the ground, rainwater runs off and overwhelms drainage systems, only to end up in the sea. Because of this, cities go back and forth between having too much and not enough, never really fixing the underlying problem.
India’s groundwater crisis isn’t caused by climate change, but it makes it worse. Erratic rainfall patterns, late monsoons, and extreme weather events are all making surface water less reliable. In response, both farmers and cities are using groundwater more aggressively, which makes the cycle of depletion worse.
Eastern India, which includes parts of West Bengal, is in a worse situation. There is a lot of groundwater here, but it is getting more polluted with arsenic and other harmful substances, which are very bad for health. So, the problem isn’t about how much, but how good.
Policy responses have often depended on technological solutions, like laws about collecting rainwater, programs for developing watersheds, and micro-irrigation systems. These are important, but not enough.
Most of the time, people ignore rainwater harvesting structures or use them as a symbol. Drip irrigation is a good way to water plants, but not many people use it because it costs too much and not many people know about it. Big projects to link rivers promise to redistribute resources, but they also cause environmental and political problems. The main problem is behavioral and structural: how water is priced, valued, and controlled. If this problem isn’t fixed, tech solutions could end up being shallow.
We need to change how we think about groundwater, from a private resource to a shared one. One choice is to manage groundwater on a community level. Local organisations in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh have been able to keep an eye on and control extraction, as well as promote environmentally friendly methods. These models aren’t perfect, but they do show that working together to govern is possible.
Another important tool is crop diversification. It is important to stop growing crops that need a lot of water in areas that are stressed, but this will only work if procurement policies, market incentives, and farmer support systems are all in sync.
Planning for cities must change too. It’s no longer possible to protect and fix recharge zones, use water-sensitive design, or control tanker markets.
Anusreeta Dutta is a columnist and climate researcher with experience in political analysis, ESG research, and energy policy.
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth