Exploitation of groundwater rampant in Asia-Pacific region

Ahmedabad: In 2023, the Jal Shakti ministry, in a written response to a question raised in Lok Sabha, said that there were a total of 2.19 crore groundwater structures in the country, of which 37 lakh were deep tubewells or borewells. 

Quoting the 6th Minor Irrigation census, the ministry said that there were a total of 2,19,32,799 groundwater structures in India which included 82,78,425 dugwells, 55,85,839 shallow tubewells, 43,18,275 medium tubewells and 37,50,260 were deep tubewells. 

“India, as the largest groundwater user globally, at an estimated 251 km³ per year abstracted, uses 89 per cent of its groundwater abstraction for irrigation,” a United Nations report stated. 

It stated that the Asia-Pacific region is the largest groundwater abstractor in the world, containing seven out of the ten countries that extract most groundwater including, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan
and Turkey.

These countries alone accounted for about 60 per cent of the world’s total groundwater withdrawal. The report underlined that the socio-economic benefits of groundwater use were crucial not only for the agricultural sector but also industrial and municipal sectors. 

It said that an estimated 60 per cent of the irrigated area in India was served by groundwater, which was also instrumental in the success of the green revolution in India. However, the report cautions that this has led to a significant decline in groundwater levels in the country.

The green revolution is also reported to have accelerated the boom in privately owned borewells from what was once under state control during British rule. 

“As a child, I would only hear stories of wells and anything unusual about their depth because going beyond a limit is dangerous. But, as I grew, I saw the boom in the borewell business especially in north Gujarat districts such as Patan, Banaskantha and Mehsana. In those days, its depth used to be between 600 to 700 feet which has now almost doubled due to receding groundwater levels,” says 55-year-old Sagar Rabari, a farmer activist and Aam Aadmi Party leader. 

Like the United Nations report, Rabari says an in-depth study should be conducted to check groundwater exploitation by industrial bodies as well as emerging residential colonies in urban centres. “I feel that more than farmers, it is the city residents who are exploiting the groundwater.”