Food & Climate
Groundwater in India covers more than 60% of irrigation needs and 80% of drinking water needs in rural areas. However, last year’s poor monsoon season led to drought and water shortages, while the water management system still faces numerous challenges, including the persistence of colonial laws.
The water shortage has affected nearly 4 million people, most of them in the suburbs, who rely on groundwater extracted from wells. This has led to long queues for residents to buy water from tankers, according to Gayathri D. Naik, an assistant professor and co-director of Commons Cell in the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. She teaches and researches on water, environmental and property law.
Such scenes reflect a wider issue across the country, with water scarcity deepening and population needs rising. Tensions are mounting – both within urban areas and in broader interstate disputes, she wrote, according an article that “Food & Climate” platform has seen.
In response to depleting surface water resources, Bengaluru and many other regions are increasingly turning to aquifers to quench their thirst and meet their daily needs.
This race to extract groundwater in India is intensifying the crisis. Calls for an urgent rethink of water governance models are intensifying too – particularly regarding groundwater management and regulation.
Groundwater in India is used more than any other
Groundwater in India is used more groundwater than any other. In rural areas, it is the primary source of drinking and domestic water, and also helps to meet many urban demands.
Northern states like Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh are particularly hard hit by widespread groundwater extraction, with a large proportion of their populations involved in agriculture, Gayathri D. Naik, said.
According to a 2024 government report by the Central Groundwater Board, India is using up groundwater faster than it can be naturally refilled.
On average, the country extracts just over 60% of the water available underground. Out of nearly 7,000 areas they studied, 11% are considered “over-exploited” – where people are taking out more water than nature can replace. Another 3% are in a critical situation, using nearly all the available groundwater, while 11% are at risk (“semi-critical”), and 73% are still considered safe, with an extraction rate of under 70%.
This crisis of groundwater in India is being driven by a growing population, the intensification of farming, rapid industrialisation and unsustainable urbanisation. The main drivers are agriculture, industrial water demands and drinking water needs.
Government subsidies for power, credit and market access – first introduced during the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s to boost agricultural productivity and address poverty and food security – have also had unintended consequences.
While these measures helped ensure enough food for the country, they also encouraged over-extraction of groundwater, undermining water availability and environmental sustainability, according to my research, Naik said.
Outdated laws deprive women of water
The regulatory framework of groundwater in India adds to the challenges of managing its groundwater development, Gayathri D. Naik said.
The framework is rooted in an outdated “land-water nexus”, a concept developed during Britain’s industrial era and later adopted in Indian law through colonial-era court rulings. Under this system, enshrined in the Indian Easements Act 1882, groundwater is treated as an extension of land, giving landowners the right to use such water that is beneath their property.
This framework fails to reflect India’s social, economic, environmental and climate realities. By linking groundwater rights to land and property ownership, it has reinforced historical inequalities in land distribution, which disproportionately benefit upper-caste, male landowners.
Meanwhile, many lower-caste communities and women, who make up a significant part of India’s agricultural workforce, have far less access to land – and therefore to the groundwater it holds.
This system perpetuates social and economic injustices and violates constitutional principles of equality, distributive justice and the fundamental right to water, recognised by India’s courts.
The state has tried to address these problems through laws and regulations, including the Model Groundwater Bills of 1992 and 2005. But these statutes largely preserve the old land-based framework. They take a “curative” approach, only stepping in to regulate areas already in crisis, rather than proactively protecting groundwater resources.
Current groundwater laws in most Indian states follow a uniform pattern that does not consider important local factors, such as variations in aquifers, climate patterns, rainfall distribution and the social and economic realities of each region.
Existing laws do not address the diverse groundwater situations in different parts of the country, particularly in eastern and southern states where there is less groundwater development and exploration than the agricultural belts of the northern states.
They also fail to address the continued challenges arising from climate change, such as higher aquifer depletion rates during droughts and dry conditions caused by weak monsoon rains.
Environmental concerns – particularly groundwater recharge, water-source sustainability and ecosystem water needs – receive inadequate attention in these bills. As courts and policymakers increasingly discuss the rights of nature, it is crucial to include environmental protection and ecosystem water needs in groundwater regulation, according to “Dialogue Earth“.
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