The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Water Development Reportstates that India is the largest extractor of groundwater in the world. Fifty-four percent of India’s groundwater wells have declined over the past seven years, and 21 major cities are expected to run out of groundwater by 2020. 

Reasons for ground water exploitation in India:-

• Groundwater is one of the most important water sources in India accounting for 63% of all irrigation water and over 80% of the rural and urban domestic water supplies. 
• Subsidies:-
  1. Subsidies on electricity are thought to play a central role in the Indian groundwater crisis. The vast majority of groundwater pumps are unmetered, and if charged, are billed at a flat, non-volumetric, and highly subsidized tariff . 
• Water intensive crops:-
  1. Government encourages farmers to produce water-intensive crops like rice and sugarcane through increased minimum support prices (MSP). This has also led to groundwater depletion, income inequality and unsustainable agriculture.
  2. Farmers are digging more and more borewells, but the sources of the problem are many, including transition to water-intensive crops and spate of construction activity along catchment areas.
• Successive droughts and erratic rainfall have led to excess extraction of groundwater. That explains 61 per cent decline in groundwater level in wells in India between 2007 and 2017. 
• India’s huge groundwater-dependent population, uncertain climate-reliant recharge processes and indiscriminate land use changes with urbanizationare among the many factors that have rendered the Indian groundwater scenario to become a global paradigm for water scarcity, for both quantity and quality.
• Trans-boundary upstream water sources and archaic irrigation methods for the water shortage.
• Government failure:
  1. The government finance for well digging and pump installation with capital subsidies, massive rural electrification and pervasive energy subsidies all have enabled this process to aggravate.
  2. In the north western parts of India and southern peninsula, the early and rapid rural electrification, free or subsidised power to the farm sector, large productive farmers and attractive procurement prices for major cereals led to intensive use of groundwater.
  3. Zero marginal cost of pumping and lack of restriction on volume of water resulted in inefficient and unsustainable use of the resource.
• Lack of adequate planning, crumbling infrastructure, indiscriminate drilling of borewells, large-scale consumption of water, and a false sense of entitlement in using water carelessly are causing water shortages.

Measures needed for alleviating this situation are :-

• Reducing electricity subsidies:-
  1. An analysis of panel data across 370 districts in India found that a reduction in electricity subsidy was correlated with a decrease in groundwater extraction .

• 1. Most empirical studies are in favour of pricing electricity on the basis of actual consumption. They show that the energy prices at which the farmers start responding to tariff changes in terms of reducing the demand for water and electricity would be socio-economically viable.

• Micro-irrigation:-
  1. Encouraging farmers to adopt micro-irrigation techniques such as drip irrigation and micro-sprinklers.
  2. According to the CWMI report, adopting micro-irrigation techniques can save roughly 20% of the groundwater used annually on irrigation in India. 
• Creating awareness:-
  1. Creating sustainable change would require a bottom-up approach by empowering the local community to become active participants in managing groundwater.  
• Proper implementation of initiatives:-
  1. 12th five-year plan proposed a policy of participatory groundwater management (PGM), which involves a collaborative approach among government departments, researchers, NGOs and community members. The plan involves training community workers to carry out aquifer mapping and implement innovative ways to use groundwater conservatively with the local community.
  2. Government has come up with a Rs. 6,000-crore World Bank-aided Atal Bhujal Yojanawith community participation to ensure sustained groundwater management in overexploited and ground water-stressed areas in seven States. 
  3. World Bank’s Water Scarce Cities Initiativeseeks to promote an integrated approach to managing water resources and service delivery in water-scarce cities as the basis for building resilience against climate change.
• Crisis can be tackled by restoring and enhancing groundwater recharge areas, stopping polluted water from recharging groundwater, rainwater and roof top harvesting and the restoration of ponds, lakes and other river systems.
• Growing less water-intensive crops in the dry seasonand transitioning away from irrigation-intensive systems where there is little water.
• India needs better policiesthat directly help small-holders and labourers to adapt and adjust to risks associated with groundwater depletion and a more variable future climate.
• In urban areas putting in place an efficient piped supply system hasto be top on the agenda of policymakers and planners.
• Conscious efforts need to be made at the household level and by communities, institutions and local bodies to supplement the efforts of governments and non-governmental bodies in promoting water conservation.
• Sustained measures should be taken to prevent pollution of water bodies, contamination of groundwater and ensure proper treatment of domestic and industrial waste water.