S. Ahmad
Public debates on water in India tend to gravitate toward what is visible—rivers in flood or drought, large dams, monsoon forecasts, and inter-state disputes. Yet the country’s most critical water source remains largely unseen and under-discussed. Groundwater, hidden beneath layers of soil and rock, is the silent backbone of India’s water security. It irrigates vast agricultural landscapes, sustains rural livelihoods, supplies expanding cities, and acts as a vital buffer against climate variability. Without groundwater, India’s economic, social, and ecological systems would struggle to function.
Globally, groundwater accounts for nearly 99 per cent of the Earth’s liquid freshwater. In India, its role is even more pronounced. Groundwater meets around 62 per cent of irrigation requirements, supplies nearly 85 per cent of rural drinking water, and caters to close to half of urban demand. It is the unseen stabiliser that supports food security, public health, and industrial growth. Yet precisely because it is invisible, groundwater has long been treated as infinite, private, and expendable.
This deep dependence has come at a mounting cost. Rapid population growth, agricultural intensification, industrial expansion, and accelerating urbanisation have placed unprecedented pressure on underground water reserves. Water tables are falling across large parts of the country, groundwater quality is deteriorating, and regulation remains uneven. What was once a dependable reserve has increasingly become a strategic vulnerability—one that threatens livelihoods, health, and long-term resilience.
Recognising the gravity of this challenge, India has begun a significant transition—from extraction-driven use to scientifically informed, participatory groundwater governance. The Ministry of Jal Shakti has emerged as the central coordinating institution in this shift, aligning policy, science, finance, and community engagement around a shared objective: securing India’s water future from below the surface.
At its core, groundwater consists of freshwater that infiltrates soil and rock formations and is stored in underground geological units known as aquifers. These aquifers function as natural reservoirs, slowly releasing water into rivers, springs, wetlands, or supplying it through wells, borewells, and tube wells. Their health determines not only water availability but also ecological balance. Over-extraction or contamination of aquifers can take decades—sometimes generations—to reverse. Unlike surface water, groundwater damage is slow, silent, and often irreversible.
Effective groundwater management, therefore, cannot be ad hoc or reactive. It must form part of an integrated water resources management framework—one that balances abstraction with recharge, development with protection, and efficiency with equity. UNESCO identifies four pillars of sustainable groundwater governance: scientific understanding of aquifer systems, regulation of abstraction, protection of water quality, and institutional coordination with strong community participation. India’s groundwater challenge intersects with all four pillars.
Unregulated pumping, enabled by affordable drilling technologies and subsidised electricity or diesel pumps, has led to sharp declines in groundwater levels across many regions. Simultaneously, groundwater quality has been compromised by industrial effluents, mining operations, agricultural runoff, untreated sewage, and naturally occurring contaminants such as arsenic and fluoride. These trends threaten food security, public health, and climate resilience, directly impacting India’s commitments under Sustainable Development Goals—particularly SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities), and SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production).
Since water is constitutionally a State subject, India’s groundwater strategy has necessarily evolved through cooperation rather than centralisation. The Union government’s role has focused on providing enabling frameworks, scientific assessment, financial support, and national coordination. One of the earliest regulatory tools in this effort is the Model Groundwater (Regulation and Control of Development and Management) Bill. Designed to help States regulate extraction, promote rainwater harvesting, and institutionalise aquifer protection, the Bill has been shared with all States and Union Territories. To date, 21 States—including Bihar, Punjab, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh—have adopted versions of it. Continuous engagement through conferences of State Water Ministers, Chief Secretaries, and the National Interdepartmental Steering Committee on Groundwater has reinforced this cooperative federal approach.
Alongside regulation, the government has placed strong emphasis on mass mobilisation and behavioural change. The Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain (JSA: CTR), launched on World Water Day in March 2021, reframed water conservation as a citizen-led movement. Its five key interventions—rainwater harvesting, water body mapping and geotagging, establishment of Jal Shakti Kendras, afforestation, and awareness generation—brought groundwater recharge into mainstream governance discourse. The revival and recharge of abandoned borewells under the campaign reflects a pragmatic approach that prioritises restoration of existing assets alongside new infrastructure.
Building on this momentum, the Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari (JSJB) initiative, launched in September 2024, has significantly scaled up recharge efforts. Designed as a flexible, locally adaptable framework, JSJB integrates rainwater harvesting, borewell recharge, recharge shafts, and aquifer replenishment with monitoring mechanisms. By January 2026, cumulative artificial recharge and storage works under JSJB 1.0 and 2.0 had crossed 39.6 lakh structures—an indicator not just of administrative reach, but of growing community participation in groundwater stewardship.
Scientific rigour underpins these efforts through the National Aquifer Mapping and Management Programme (NAQUIM). Implemented between 2012 and 2023, NAQUIM mapped aquifer systems across the country, assessed groundwater availability and quality, and created the foundation for evidence-based planning. Its successor, NAQUIM 2.0, represents a significant qualitative advance. By providing high-resolution data down to the Panchayat level and focusing on water-stressed, coastal, urban, industrial, and poor-quality aquifer zones, it shifts groundwater governance from broad assessments to issue-specific, user-centric solutions.
Complementing mapping and monitoring is the Master Plan for Artificial Recharge to Groundwater 2020. This Plan recognises India’s geological diversity and tailors recharge strategies accordingly—surface spreading structures in rural plains, rooftop harvesting in urban areas, and specialised interventions in hilly and coastal regions. It envisages the creation of approximately 1.42 crore recharge structures with a potential to add 185 billion cubic metres of water to aquifers, underscoring the scale required to address groundwater depletion meaningfully.
Among the most transformative initiatives is the Atal Bhujal Yojana (Atal Jal), launched in December 2019. Covering seven water-stressed States—Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh—the scheme places communities at the centre of groundwater management. With an outlay of ₹6,000 crore, it combines institutional strengthening with performance-linked incentives. By January 2026, the scheme had produced measurable outcomes: reduced rates of groundwater decline, adoption of efficient water-use practices across over 6.68 lakh hectares, installation of 6,271 digital water-level recorders, and widespread deployment of water-level indicators. These outcomes signal a shift from expenditure-focused schemes to results-based governance.
At the grassroots level, Mission Amrit Sarovar has added a visible and socially embedded dimension to groundwater recharge. Launched in April 2022, the mission promotes the construction and rejuvenation of ponds—each at least one acre in size and capable of storing 10,000 cubic metres of water. Beyond irrigation and recharge, these water bodies enhance biodiversity, improve micro-climates, and restore community relationships with local ecosystems.
Underlying these programmes is a rapidly expanding groundwater knowledge and monitoring infrastructure. India now operates more than 43,000 groundwater level monitoring stations, over 53,000 water quality monitoring stations, 712 Jal Shakti Kendras, thousands of piezometers and rain gauges, and over 15 lakh registered wells under Atal Jal alone. This architecture is crucial in transforming groundwater from an invisible, poorly understood resource into a measurable, governable ecological asset.
Taken together, these initiatives mark a fundamental shift in India’s water strategy—from reactive extraction to anticipatory management, from fragmented schemes to systemic reform, and from top-down control to shared stewardship. Groundwater, once treated as an inexhaustible private commodity, is increasingly recognised as a shared ecological commons requiring regulation, science, and social consent.
Challenges remain. Climate variability, uneven enforcement, competing sectoral demands, and political economy pressures will continue to test groundwater systems. Yet the direction of policy is unmistakable. By integrating legal reform, scientific mapping, community participation, and sustained investment, India is laying the foundations of long-term water security from below the surface.
Groundwater may be invisible, but its future will define India’s development trajectory. The choices being made today will determine whether it remains the country’s silent strength or becomes its quiet crisis. The emerging governance framework suggests that India has begun to choose wisely—but sustaining that choice will require continued vigilance, cooperation, and commitment.
The article is based on the inputs and background information provided by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) Author is Writer, Policy Commentator. He can be mailed at kcprmijk@gmail.com
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