Gurman Bhatia just reported (2019) that an increasing population in India and inadequate surface water is fast depleting the country of its groundwater resources. More than a third of the country's population lives in water-stressed areas. Groundwater has been declining at an alarming rate in India, which is expected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country in less than a decade. More than a third of India’s population lives in water-stressed areas and this number is set to grow due to depleting groundwater and rising urbanization. India is one of 17 countries facing extremely high water stress, according to a recent report by the World Resources Institute.
India’s water stress has increased in the last few decades as water wells were drilled to extract more and more groundwater for water-guzzling crops such as rice and sugarcane. Ideally, surface water should be stored during monsoon season and used throughout the year instead of groundwater. India has built many large dams in the last few decades, but still there are hundreds of incomplete dams and successive federal governments have spent billions of dollars over the years to complete them. But several are still unfinished due to bureaucratic sloth, corruption, opposition to land acquisition and lack of coordination within the government.
Government data released in July 2019 shows that in 2017, 109 districts out of the 684 for which data was available, used more groundwater than what was replenished by both natural and artificial processes, a measurement known as groundwater “recharge”.
Data published by the Central Ground Water Board in India suggests that when city and village blocks were compared to the last review done in 2013, fewer blocks recorded safe levels in 2017. The percentage of over-exploited blocks increased. Due to growing water-intensive crops like paddy, Punjab and Haryana use groundwater for flood irrigation. With the state's arid climate, groundwater over-exploitation has affected majority of Rajasthan's population. Policy changes have vastly improved the usage in Andhra Pradesh States in the north-east with their abundant rainfall and hilly terrain don't use much of their groundwater.
India's groundwater usage exceeds that of China and the United States combined. They, like many other countries, instead depend on surface water for their daily fresh water requirements. Despite being the second most populous country, India is the biggest freshwater consumer in the world - 39% of which is groundwater. Per capita water availability has fallen to 1,545 cubic metres in 2011 from 5,177 cubic metres in 1950. Less than 1,700 cubic metres water availability is considered a water-stressed condition, whereas below 1,000 cubic metres is considered as a water scarcity condition. Availability in the South Asian country is forecast to drop below 1,300 by 2041.
[See the original URL for very good graphic on the issues discussed.].
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