Civic Infrastructure Breakdown and Governance Collapse

GS-III – Environment, Ecology | Agriculture | Groundwater Management

Why in News?

• Groundwater Over-extraction: As per 2025–26 Dynamic Groundwater Assessment, Punjab has a groundwater extraction of 152%.
• Red-Zone Blocks: Even though there was some improvement, 72% of Punjab’s 153 evaluation blocks remain in the ‘Over-exploited’ class – the maximum inside States.
• Second, the destructive cropping pattern: Since eternity, rice-wheat system enjoys the gift of assured procurement, subsidised electricity and groundwater access.
• Increasing Inequality: Groundwater depletion is escalating the costs of irrigation , larger farmers are able to make do with deeper tube wells but smaller and marginal farmers cannot afford them.
• Policy Challenge: Re-conciling the need of groundwater conservation, protecting farmers income and equitable access to irrigation in Punjab.

Structural Causes of Groundwater Depletion

• The Rice-Wheat Cropping System: An originally food security oriented strategy eventually resulted in a concentrated cropping pattern reliant on high inputs of irrigation.
• Guaranteed procurement: Guaranteed government procurement of rice and wheat helps mitigate market risk for such crops, making alternative crops distinctly less profitable.
• Subsidised Electricity: Cheaper electricity promotes ground water pumping while reducing incentives to conserve.
• Introduction of High-Yield Varieties: The adoption of high-yield varieties, together with intensive irrigation, fertiliser and mechanisation further entrenched input-intensive agriculture.
• Limited Crop Diversification: Farmers are not willing to switch over to alternative crops due to uncertainty regarding:
  • Storage facilities.
  • Prices and market demand.
  • Processing infrastructure.
  • Reliable supply chains.
• Policy Gap: The risks and infrastructure constraints in the crop diversification have not been sufficiently addressed.

Groundwater Depletion and Agrarian Inequality

• Disparity in Groundwater Access: Economics and Political Weekly published a study that tackled the disparity in groundwater access; as marginal farmers are known to use water efficiently, wealthier farmers have better prospects of accessing deeper aquifers from which water is extracted in greater quantity.
• Increasing Costs of Irrigation: Drying aquifers need tube wells to be sunk deeper and hence the capital cost increases leading to increased costs in irrigation.
• Reliance on Buying Water: Indebted farmers unable to suction water by deeper tube wells are compelled to buy water from layers of land owners.
• Wealth transfer: The arrangements inhale income from relatively more humble cultivators to more outstanding landowners and manufacture uncontrolled allegiances.
• Skewed Returns from Agriculture: A study published in the journal Discover Sustainability covering Sangrur and Barnala found that larger areas of land fetched better returns but had lower groundwater productivity compared to paddy than small farmers.
• Structural Inequality: Farmers with better access to finance, technology and irrigation infrastructure increasingly monopolise the dwindling supply of groundwater.

Government Interventions

• Pani Bachao, Paisa Kamao Scheme: Farmers are rewarded with cash for saving each unit (kilo watt hour) of energy used for pumping when the usage is below a threshold limit.
• Low Uptake: While the scheme has its merits, it has limited uptake.
• Core Policy Challenge: Water conservation through groundwater must be paired with income protection and equitable distribution of irrigation water – but farmers cannot bear the entire adjustment burden.

Way Forward

• Reform Electricity Subsidies: Redeploying low electricity rates for agriculture to target smallholder farmers directly, and disincentivising over-extraction of groundwater.
• Encourage Collective Irrigation: A collective irrigation infrastructure can help save beyond individual upfront costs and the distribution becomes more equitable.
• Promote diversification away from rice: Expand the capacity of storage, processing, price guarantee and supply chains for alternative crops that would lessen reliance on the rice-wheat system.
• Strengthen Incentive-Based Conservation: Enrol more farmers under schemes like Pani Bachao, Paisa Kamao for decreasing power use to pump.
• Protect SMS farmers: Ensure that groundwater conservation policies do not compromise the livelihood of small and marginal farmers.
• Make Welfare Cultivator-Centric: Give benefits to actual cultivators (i.e. tenant farmers) rather than landowners or pump owners.
• Discouraging over-extraction: Prohibitive pricing of excessive groundwater extraction while providing protection for farmers essential irrigation needs.
• Guarantee Water access: Develop policies that subsidise access to water rather than the extraction of groundwater.

Conclusion

• Sustainable Agriculture: The scenarios of dwindling groundwater resources in Punjab itself also narrate the story of ecological costs of a water-intensive agricultural system.
• Social Justice Dimension: Declining water tables raise irrigation costs, and exacerbate inequities between smallholders and wealthier farmers.
• Realignment of Policy: Efficient groundwater management must shift from efficiency improvements to structural adjustments in agricultural incentives, crop diversification and supply of irrigation.
• Inclusive Water Governance: Link welfare to real water users, promote collective irrigation and reward groundwater conservation.

UPSC Mains Practice Question

Q. The groundwater crisis of Punjab is not only an ecological problem, but it has become a rising agrarian inequality issue. Analyse the structural factors leading to groundwater depletion in Punjab and the actions required for sustainable and equitable irrigation.