Karnataka panchayats lead groundwater fight at Mumbai Climate Week

The Panchayat members described how climate pressures in Kolar became impossible to ignore as groundwater levels plunged dramatically.

Mumbai: A grassroots effort to address deepening climate stress in Karnataka’s Kolar district received national attention at Mumbai Climate Week 2026 with the Huladenahalli village sharing its story of transformation efforts by tackling the plunging groundwater levels.

Speaking at a special session titled ‘Panchayats Leading India’s Climate Charge’ at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai, Suryanarayana Rao, a gram panchayat member from Huladenahalli in Malur taluk in Kolar district, joined representatives from Maharashtra, Kerala, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha to showcase how village institutions are shaping locally grounded climate solutions.

The panel provided a sharp overview of the Conference of Panchayats (CoP) initiative led by Asar Social Impact Advisors and Policy & Development Advisory Group (PDAG).

It shed light on the importance of strengthening local leadership in climate action.

Rao described how climate pressures in Kolar became impossible to ignore as groundwater levels plunged dramatically over the past two decades.

"Kolar depends entirely on rainfall, and our wells have been sinking deeper every year. Farmers are drilling up to 2,000 feet for water. Soil health has deteriorated, biodiversity has declined, and repeated droughts have made agriculture increasingly uncertain," he said.

To address these challenges, panchayat leaders across all six taluks of the district came together in a series of conferences supported by Gramvikas and Asar to document the crisis and identify solutions.

“These discussions allowed us to map local problems clearly and prepare action plans that panchayats could implement immediately, while also identifying measures that require support from taluk and district authorities,” Rao explained.

The consultations focused on key concerns such as declining groundwater, soil erosion, shrinking forest cover and rural distress. They also generated policy recommendations aimed at securing Kolar’s long-term ecological future.

The recommendations from all six taluks were later consolidated and presented at a district-level panchayat conference attended by senior district officials.

The gathering adopted 13 major resolutions focused on increasing forest cover, conserving water sources, promoting organic farming to restore soil health, protecting biodiversity and strengthening agriculture-based livelihoods.

Today, under the guidance of Asar and Gramvikas, 154 gram panchayats across Kolar are working together to ensure these climate-responsive priorities are incorporated into district development plans for 2026–27.

“The Conference of Panchayats was designed to explore ways to enhance the capacity of local self government institutions and actors to address emerging climate risks. It focuses on developing local, evidence-based solutions and implementing long-term climate initiatives, anchored within the local socio-economic and climate realities. We hope that this CoP will help drive a uniform nationwide local climate action platform by 2028 with the proposed global CoP33 to be held in India,” said Arindam Banerjee, Co-founder and Partner, PDAG.

Echoing the vision of locally anchored climate governance, Vinuta Gopal, CEO, Asar, said, “From the farthest corners of six states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, gram panchayat leaders took the stage to show that climate action is already being built on the ground - through every tree that is planted, solar panel installed, and village action plans formally adopted.

Rooted in the institutions of local self-government, these efforts are protecting lives and livelihoods as climate pressures intensify. Such grounded models for scalable climate action offer hope that the most lasting and credible solutions are those that begin within communities and grow outward.”