GROUND WATER DEPLETION IN

NORTHWEST AND CENTRAL INDIA

SOUMYA POCHIRAJU - 2018B5A70934H ,

S. VARSHITH REDDY - 2018B3A70022H  
Statement of the problem
Ground water depletion and water scarcity is of the biggest problems faced by India today.
Since most of the ground water extracted in our country goes into irrigation, it is reasonable to
assume that the groundwater levels can be improved by making irrigation more efficient.
India’s agriculture industry is largely dependent on rice and wheat, two highly water intensive
crops. Though these are the staple foods of most of the country’s population, such a high
dependency did not exist prior to the green revolution.
The green revolution caused extensive ground water depletion, especially in the north-west and
central regions of the country. Today, many farmers struggle as they don’t have water to irrigate
their crops.

Degradation and marginalization thesis: case study of Punjab

The state of Punjab a few decades ago had no water-table crisis, but today, it is a huge
problem.  In 1984, Punjab had 2.44 million acre ft (MAF) of groundwater, which dwindled to
minus 11.63 MAF in 2013. It was mainly due to overexploitation of groundwater.[ CITATION
CRR19 \l 1033 ]

The High Yielding variety seeds and extra chemicals that the green revolution brought along
demanded heavy irrigation. Along with this, the government introduced MSPs for staple food
crops, which incentivized farmers to grow them. This transformed Punjab’s diversified cropping
system into wheat-paddy rotation. The country’s increasing demand for food and the vested
interests of global agri-business, inter alia, were the major fac tors behind the Green
Revolution and the promotion of paddy in Punjab.[ CITATION CRR19 \l 1033 ]

Despite the water scarcity, farmers continue to produce wheat and Paddy as these are the only
crops supported by the state. At the same time, some farmers are being forced to start
producing other crops like maize and cotton, as they have been facing crop failure of paddy
crops due to lack of water. The state government does not provide any MSP for maize.
“Groundwater has depleted too deep around the village to grow paddy, and another crop loss
would push my family deep into debt,” said Gurmail Singh, a 48-year-old farmer from Bhathadua
village in Punjab’s Ludhiana district.[ CITATION Par19 \l 1033 ]

This case is a good example of the degradation and marginalization thesis because we see that
previously harmless agricultural production practices were transformed into practices that are
degrading the environment as a result of new policies brought in by the state. The diverse crops
previously grown by the local farmers of Punjab did not lead to over-extraction of ground water
until the Green revolution came along and forced all farmers into paddy production. Now, the
farmers are the ones who are afraid of falling into debt. They are the ones who are being
marginalized.

Who has the problem? Where does it occur?

A database compiled by the World Resources Institute listed nine Indian states and Union
territories as having extremely high water stress. These are: Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan,
Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chandigarh, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir.
While districts with significant decrease in groundwater are located in the Indo-Gangetic Plain,
northwest, and central (Maharashtra) regions, a few districts in Punjab show substantial decline
in groundwater table. With depletion occurring at a rate of 91 cm per year, Punjab has been
witnessing a steep decline in groundwater table since 1996.[ CITATION RPr18 \l 1033 ]

Water scarcity affects all of us, but just like most other problems, the farmers and the people
below poverty line are the ones who are affected first, and the most. According to an article by
the BBC, the farmers from Dharodi village in the state of Haryana have been protesting for over
2 months. They say that they don’t get enough water to even feed their cattle. They have been
spending 500 rupees a month for drinking water, which is more than most urban citizens pay.
The farmers are worried that soon they won’t even have water to drink, let alone irrigate their
fields.

How we came to know of this problem

We are already experiencing the effects of water scarcity. It’s in the news, and everyone is
talking about it. We found out about how the farmers were affected by the green revolution
through a case study discussed during class.

Why is it important to solve it?

The recent report of NITI Aayog on groundwater level says 21 Indian cities will run out of
groundwater by 2020, affecting around 100 million people. And according to researchers, water
shortages can hit food supplies causing prices to soar and fueling social unrest. Once people
run out of safe sources of drinking water, they will be forced to turn to un-safe sources, leading
to increase in the spread of disease and deterioration of public health.
But even right now, children of 100 million families live without water at home, while urban areas
continue to consume water at the rate of up to 150 liters per capita per day.

Technology gaps & Suggested solution

The use of Tensiometers by farmers could help in preventing over-irrigation. A tensiometer is a
measuring device used to measure soil moisture tension. This device typically consists of a
glass or plastic tube with a porous ceramic cup, and is filled with water. The top of the tube has
either a built-in vacuum gauge or a rubber cap used with a portable puncture tensiometer
instrument, which uses a hypodermic needle to measure the pressure inside the tensiometer.
The tensiometer is buried in the soil, and a hand pump is used to pull a partial vacuum. As
water is pulled out of the soil by plants and evaporation, the vacuum inside the tube increases.
As water is added to the soil, the vacuum inside the tube pulls moisture from the soil and
decreases. As the water in tensiometer is considered to be equilibrium with the soil water, the
gauge reading of the tensiometer represents the matric potential of the soil. [ CITATION wik19 \l
1033 ]
It is easy to use, and the materials used in production are not very expensive, and it is easy to
manufacture
Erratic weather patterns and water shortages have cause farmers to turn to new technologies
over the past few years. The use of tensiometers for irrigation scheduling has been long known,
but its application in Indian agriculture is relatively new.[ CITATION tan18 \l 1033 ]

According to an article by Nita Bhalla on businesstoday.in, farmers in Punjab have reported that
their incomes have increased considerably due to the use of the tensiometer, as it helps them
save on their electricity bills. Thus, the tensiometer might be a viable method of improving
irrigation efficiency in India

Outline of our idea

Water scarcity is one of the biggest issues India faces today. The total estimated groundwater
depletion in India is in the range of 122–199 billion-meter cube and most of this resource is used
for agriculture. (R.Prasad, 2018)
We want to do a research project on how to save water and to prevent groundwater depletion
using tensiometer technology. Crops like wheat and rice are the major crops which are grown
by many people in North – West India. We want to do this research in a farm land by initially
cultivating a crop such wheat with conventional methods, without using a tensiometer. We
would later do the same by using a tensiometer and would observe the difference in water
usage for irrigation in both the cases. Tensiometers measure the tension that the plants exert to
extract water from the soil. This tension is a direct measure of the availability of water to a plant.
As these instruments show the readings of moisture level in the soil we would observe on how
much water could be saved by using this technology as the farm can be irrigated when required
and prevents excessive irrigation. We can comparatively measure how much of water is put to
use in both the cases. This technology also prevents the soil from getting dry as the tensiometer
indicates when to irrigate the farm. We would like to do this research on 10 to 20 different farms
simultaneously. We would provide the farmers with the tensiometers and would observe the
difference in water usage in their farms after two harvesting seasons. If this technology is really
efficient in reducing water usage for irrigation we could encourage the farmers to use this
technology.

Did you think up the technological solution within your team or was it thought up in consultation
with others?
We have thought up the technological solution within our team by incorporating the suggestions
given by our professor.

Proposed Objectives
Objective of our idea is to show that the usage of instruments like tensiometer would decrease
the usage of water for irrigation. Our idea is to save water and to prevent excessive ground
water depletion and to encourage farmers in using technologies like tensiometers for saving
water from excessive irrigation as most of the groundwater is used for irrigation.

Work Plan
We would start by studying other previous researches done about our topic and also study
about the working and installation of tensiometers. We would then search for suitable place for
our research. It would take a month for studying the researches and choosing an appropriate
place for our experiment. We would then start our research with the help of the farmers by
cultivating the crop with the conventional methods in various farms nearby. We would observe
the usage of water required for irrigation till the harvesting is done. Then we would provide the
farmers with the tensiometers and would help then in installation of the tensiometers and would
help them to understand the working of the instrument. We would cultivate the same crop in the
next harvesting season and observe the usage of water for irrigation when the tensiometers are
used. We would then study the difference between the two cases. We would then spread
awareness and encourage the farmers to use this technology so that they could save ground
water and reduce the usage of energy. We need around 15 months to complete this research as
wheat is a rabi crop and we need to observe to rabi harvesting seasons to complete our
research

References
(2018, January 9). Retrieved from tandfonline:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02508060.2017.1416443

(2019, september 5). Retrieved from wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensiometer_(soil_science)

CRRID, p. a. (2019). Why Punjab has a water crisis. the tribune.

Krar, P. (2019). Falling groundwater levels driving farmers in Punjab to move away from paddy.
Economic Times.

R.Prasad. (2018). Groundwater depletion alarming in northwest, central India. The Hindu.

R.Prasad. (2018). Groundwater depletion alarming in northwest, central India.