The public notice issued recently by the Central Groundwater Authority (CGWA), under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, rattled groundwater users. It essentially says that all the users of groundwater for drinking and domestic use — residential apartments/group housing societies/government water supply agencies in urban areas, bulk water suppliers, industrial/infrastructure/mining projects, swimming pool whether existing or new — are required to take permission for groundwater drawal from the CGWA latest by June 30, 2022.
All the existing users are given a one-time opportunity to register their groundwater drawal by June 30, by paying a registration fee of ₹10,000; the completed application must be submitted before September 30. It further says that strict action shall be initiated against users who continue to draw groundwater without seeking a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the CGWA, and such groundwater drawal will be considered illegal.
Is the fee for using groundwater justified? How did we reach this situation?
Groundwater use for various purposes has increased tremendously over time. India’s annual groundwater draft is the largest in the world. Estimated at 245 billion cubic meter (bcm), it is about 64 per cent of the total groundwater potential (398 bcm) in 2020. States like UP, Punjab, MP, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat together accounted for about 144 bcm (59 per cent) in the total draft of groundwater (see Table).
About 89 per cent of groundwater is used for irrigation alone. Along with the increased exploitation, the net irrigated area using groundwater also increased from 7.30 million hectares (mha) in 1960-61 to about 48 mha in 2018-19.
While the benefits of groundwater are huge, its continuous exploitation has brought many negative externalities, particularly to farmers. A study by NASA (2009) showed that the groundwater level had been declining about one meter every three years in States like Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana. Shockingly, between 2002 and 2008, about 109 cubic km of groundwater reportedly vanished from these regions due to continuous exploitation.
With increasing groundwater drawal every year, not only has the quality of water deteriorated but the number of overexploited blocks has also increased. CGWB data show that the number of blocks classified as other than safe has increased from 1,645 (28.74 per cent) in 2004 to 2,538 (36.44 per cent) in 2020.
Most of these over-exploited blocks are located in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. The total number of blocks categorised as saline water also increased from 30 to 100 during this period. Importantly, a World Bank (2010) study, ‘Deep wells and prudence: Towards pragmatic action for addressing groundwater exploitation in India’, cautioned that about 60 per cent of India’s aquifers will reach a critical stage by 2032. Can these unprecedented changes be ignored?
Main villain
Groundwater exploitation has been rising since the introduction of Green Revolution. But faulty electricity pricing followed by successive governments is one of the key reasons for the overexploitation of groundwater. The provision of heavily subsidised or free electricity often encourages users (not only farmers) to exploit more groundwater as the marginal cost of lifting water from aquifers is close to zero.
This is evident from the level of groundwater exploitation in States such as Punjab, Haryana and Tamil Nadu, where electricity is supplied free for irrigation for many years now. The average stage of groundwater development (that is, the ratio of annual groundwater draft and net annual groundwater availability) in the three States was as high as 127 per cent in 2020; these States have fewer number of safe blocks as well. If preventive actions are not taken to control the reckless exploitation of water, will it not affect the agricultural sector?
Besides increasing the subsidy burden of the States, free electricity does more harm than good, particularly to farmers having shallow tube-wells. As deep bore-wells exploit more groundwater, the water in shallow wells gets depleted and then they become defunct. The depleting water level shortens the life of the wells, which has a huge impact on resource-poor farmers who cannot install deep bore-wells with larger HP pump-sets.
According to the 5th Minor Irrigation Census (2017), a total of 4.14 lakh open wells in India became defunct between 2006-07 and 2013-14.
Now, considering the ever-increasing exploitation of groundwater, the government has introduced a registration fee for using groundwater. Will this be enough to control the over-exploitation of groundwater? The answer is ‘no’, because this nominal fee will not have any impact on the large users.
Instead of having a uniform fee for all users, a discriminated fee can be fixed for agriculture, industry and domestic users keeping in view the ability-to-pay principle. For non-agricultural purposes, the fee can be fixed based on the level of exploitation of water, depth of the well and HP of the pump-set. For agriculture, the fee can be fixed by farm size or HP of the pump-set or based on the consumption of electricity. In any case, the fee alone will not be sufficient to control the over-exploitation of groundwater.
Groundwater exploitation and electricity pricing policies are intertwined. Most States that provide electricity free or at a low unit cost for irrigation are experiencing over-exploitation of groundwater. Therefore, there is a need to revisit the electricity pricing policies. While free electricity may be provided for marginal farmers having pump-set capacity of less than 5 HP capacity, progressive pro-rata (kWh-based tariff) pricing may be fixed for all other farmers. This may also discourage the farmers from cultivating water-intensive crops, which is the root cause for the increased exploitation of groundwater.
Wherever free electricity is supplied, judicious rationing has to be followed in its supply. Studies show that solar-powered irrigation pumps help reduce the exploitation of groundwater besides saving huge subsidies on electricity. An ambitious scheme, PM-KUSUM, was introduced in 2019 with a budget of ₹34,422 crore, and with a huge subsidy component, for the installation of solar pumps. The benefits of solar-powered pumps need to be communicated to all the stakeholders.
Any measure introduced to control the reckless exploitation of groundwater will hugely benefit the farmer and the government.
The writer is former full-time Member (Official), Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, New Delhi. The views are personal