The Lift Line
As the water table falls, the poorer farmer ends up buying water from the richer one: depletion quietly becomes a transfer of wealth.
Why This Editorial Matters for Your Exam
Groundwater answers usually stop at “over-exploitation” and “shift away from paddy”. This editorial adds the angle that separates a good answer from an average one: equity. Depletion raises the capital needed to irrigate, so it favours farmers with land, credit and deeper pumps. It also offers a concrete policy lever, the design of the farm power subsidy.
GS Paper 3: Major crops and cropping patterns; irrigation and irrigation systems; issues related to direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices; conservation. GS Paper 1: Distribution of key natural resources (water) across India.
| Concept | Meaning | Why it is testable |
|---|---|---|
| Stage of Ground Water Extraction | Annual extraction for all uses as a percentage of the annual extractable resource | The headline indicator of the national assessment |
| Over-exploited unit | An assessment unit (block, taluk or mandal) where extraction exceeds 100 per cent of the extractable resource | Standard Prelims category |
| Groundwater productivity | Crop output or income per unit of groundwater used | Lets you compare farms by efficiency, not size |
| Water markets | Farmers without deep wells buying water from those with them | The mechanism of the wealth transfer |
Background and Context
What the assessment shows. India’s groundwater is assessed jointly by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) and State groundwater departments. As background, the Dynamic Ground Water Resources Assessment 2025, released by the Ministry of Jal Shakti on 30 December 2025, put the country’s stage of extraction at 60.63 per cent, with 730 of 6,762 assessment units (10.80 per cent) over-exploited.
| Indicator | Punjab | India |
|---|---|---|
| Stage of groundwater extraction | 152.22 per cent (2025-26) | 60.63 per cent (2025) |
| Over-exploited units | 110 of 153 blocks (about 72 per cent) | 730 of 6,762 units |
| Extractable resource | 17.29 BCM | Not applicable |
| Annual recharge versus extraction | About 19.14 BCM recharge, 26.32 BCM extraction | Not applicable |
| Extraction for irrigation | 24.95 BCM (nearly 25 BCM for rice and wheat, per the editorial) | Not applicable |
BCM: billion cubic metres. Punjab’s figures are from the State’s 2025-26 Dynamic Groundwater Resource Assessment, prepared by a 10-member committee and reported in September 2026; India’s are from the national assessment released on 30 December 2025. The two are separate exercises, so compare them with care; both serve here as background.
How the categories work:
| Stage of extraction | Category |
|---|---|
| Up to 70 per cent | Safe |
| Above 70 and up to 90 per cent | Semi-critical |
| Above 90 and up to 100 per cent | Critical |
| Above 100 per cent | Over-exploited |
How Punjab got here. The Green Revolution made Punjab the granary of the central pool. Assured procurement of paddy and wheat at minimum support price, free electricity for farm pumps and access to groundwater together made the rice-wheat rotation the lowest-risk choice for a farmer, even though paddy is a water-intensive crop grown in a semi-arid State. Alternatives lack the same assurance: storage, prices, processing and supply chains for other crops remain uncertain.
The Analysis
1. The crisis is not new; its distribution is. The editorial opens by conceding that Punjab’s over-extraction “is not news”. What is new is the evidence on who pays. The share of observation wells with water deeper than 40 metres after the monsoon rose by two percentage points between 2022 and 2025. Deeper water means costlier submersible pumps and more power.
2. Depletion is regressive. An Economic and Political Weekly study cited by the editorial finds that marginal farmers use water more efficiently, but wealthier farmers can reach lower water tables and draw more. Farmers who cannot afford deeper tube wells must buy water, so their income flows to larger landowners, creating unregulated dependencies.
3. Big farms earn more but use water less productively. A second study, in Discover Sustainability, found that in Sangrur and Barnala districts larger farms earned higher returns but recorded lower groundwater productivity in paddy than smaller farms. Scale is being rewarded, not efficiency.
4. Efficiency gains are being swamped by scale. The State has tried several demand-side measures, and five blocks left the over-exploited category over the last two assessments. But 72 per cent of blocks remain in the red zone. The editorial’s point is that such gains cannot keep pace with the volume of extraction the cropping system demands.
5. The lever is the subsidy, redirected. The editorial’s prescription has two halves: protect smallholders’ incomes and access to irrigation, and make additional extraction prohibitively costly. It praises “Pani Bachao, Paisa Kamao” (save water, earn money), under which farmers are paid for each unused kilowatt-hour below a threshold, while noting its low enrolment. It then asks that part of the electricity subsidy go directly to smallholders, to collective irrigation and to crop transition, with benefits following the cultivator, including tenants, not the owner of the land or the pump.
The precision that earns marks. Do not write “Punjab’s groundwater is depleting” and stop. Write that extraction is 152 per cent of the extractable resource (2025-26), that 110 of 153 blocks are over-exploited, and that depletion is regressive because it raises the capital cost of irrigation. Then name the lever: redesign of the flat, free power subsidy.
Data and Institutions Vault
Prelims-grade facts:
The 2025 assessment:
- As background, the Dynamic Ground Water Resources Assessment 2025 was released by the Ministry of Jal Shakti on 30 December 2025.
- It is prepared jointly by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) and State and UT groundwater agencies.
- India’s stage of groundwater extraction: 60.63 per cent; over-exploited units: 730 of 6,762 (10.80 per cent).
- Punjab’s 2025-26 assessment: extraction 152.22 per cent; 110 of 153 blocks over-exploited, about 72 per cent.
- Categories: Safe up to 70 per cent; Semi-critical 70 to 90; Critical 90 to 100; Over-exploited above 100 per cent.
Law and institutions:
- Water is a State subject: Entry 17 of List II, subject to Entry 56 of List I (inter-State rivers).
- The Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) was constituted in 1997 under Section 3(3) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
- The Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Water Act, 2009 bars paddy nursery sowing and transplanting before dates notified by the State.
- Atal Bhujal Yojana (launched 25 December 2019) covers seven States: Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
- Pani Bachao, Paisa Kamao is a Punjab scheme that pays farmers for electricity units saved below a set entitlement.
Prelims, the traps:
- Punjab is not among the seven Atal Bhujal Yojana States, despite having the worst groundwater stress.
- “Over-exploited” means extraction above 100 per cent of the extractable resource, not a fall in the water table as such.
- CGWA is a statutory body under the Environment (Protection) Act; CGWB is the Ministry of Jal Shakti’s technical body.
⚠️ Watch the trap: A stage of extraction above 100 per cent is possible because farmers are drawing down stored (static) groundwater, not just the annual recharge. That is exactly why wells keep getting deeper.
The Debate
Make extraction expensive. Free and unmetered power removes the marginal cost of pumping, so the farmer who pumps most gains most. Metering with a free entitlement, and paying for units saved, puts a price on the last unit of water without taxing the first.
Protect the rice-wheat farmer. Punjab’s paddy and wheat feed the central pool, and farmers switch only when other crops carry assured procurement, storage and processing. Withdrawing free power abruptly would hit small farmers first and is politically fraught.
The balanced verdict. The two positions meet in the editorial’s design principle: keep water affordable for the smallholder, make extra extraction costly for everyone, and pay for the transition out of the existing subsidy bill. Crop diversification needs market support from the Centre; power reform needs the State.
How to Think About This
Ask who bears the cost of a shared resource running out. A common-pool resource such as an aquifer is not depleted evenly: those with capital keep access longest, and those without pay them for it. Whenever you write about groundwater, fisheries, forests or urban water supply, add the distributional question to the ecological one. Then look at the subsidy that shapes behaviour, and ask whom it follows: the user, the owner or the asset.
Diagram-in-Words
Groundwater depletion in Punjab is as much a question of equity among farmers as of ecological sustainability. Discuss, and suggest how farm power subsidies could be redesigned to address both. (250 words)
Punjab extracts about one and a half times the groundwater available for extraction each year: its stage of extraction was 152.22 per cent in the State’s 2025-26 assessment, against 60.63 per cent for India as a whole in the national assessment of 2025. The damage is not only ecological.
As the water table falls, the cost of reaching water rises, and that cost is borne unequally.
The crisis is institutional in origin. Assured procurement at minimum support price, free farm electricity and access to groundwater made the paddy-wheat rotation the least risky choice, and rice and wheat irrigation now draws nearly 25 billion cubic metres a year.
Three consequences follow. First, sustainability: 110 of Punjab’s 153 blocks are over-exploited, and wells are getting deeper.
Second, equity: deeper water needs costlier submersible pumps, so larger, credit-worthy farmers keep irrigating while marginal farmers buy water from them, which transfers income upwards and creates informal dependencies. Third, fiscal cost: a flat, free power supply rewards the farmer who pumps most.
The response must work on both demand and incentives. The Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Water Act, 2009 already shifts paddy transplanting towards the monsoon; direct-seeded rice and shorter-duration varieties save further water.
Power can be metered with a free entitlement and a cash reward for units saved, as the Pani Bachao, Paisa Kamao pilot does. Part of the power subsidy can instead finance collective irrigation, pulses, maize and oilseeds with assured procurement, and support tied to the cultivator, including tenants.
Water being a State subject under Entry 17 of the State List, Punjab must lead, with Centre support through crop-diversification and procurement policy.
Groundwater policy in Punjab has to be judged by two tests together: does it lower extraction, and does it leave the small farmer no worse off. A subsidy that follows the cultivator rather than the pump can pass both.
Interview Angle
"Free electricity for farm pumps is popular and politically hard to withdraw. If you were Punjab's Principal Secretary (Agriculture), how would you cut groundwater extraction without cutting small farmers' incomes?"
Takeaway Box
- Punjab (2025-26): 152.22 per cent stage of extraction; 110 of 153 blocks over-exploited (India, 2025: 60.63 per cent; 730 of 6,762 units).
- Rice and wheat irrigation draws nearly 25 BCM a year.
- Depletion is regressive: richer farmers reach deeper water, poorer ones buy it from them.
- Pani Bachao, Paisa Kamao pays for power units saved, but enrolment is low.
- Way forward: part of the power subsidy to smallholders, collective irrigation and crop transition, with benefits that follow the cultivator, including tenants.
The Hindu argues that Punjab’s groundwater over-extraction, driven by an assured rice-wheat system built on procurement, subsidised power and cheap water, is now widening the wealth gap among farmers, because only richer farmers can chase a falling water table, and that the State should protect smallholders’ incomes and irrigation access while making additional extraction costly.
- Punjab’s stage of groundwater extraction is 152 per cent, and 72 per cent of its 153 blocks are in the red zone, the highest share among States, even after five blocks moved out of the over-exploited category over the last two assessments.
- Irrigation for rice and wheat draws nearly 25 billion cubic metres a year, and the share of observation wells with water below 40 metres after the monsoon rose by two percentage points between 2022 and 2025.
- An Economic and Political Weekly study finds marginal farmers use water more efficiently, while wealthier farmers can reach deeper aquifers and pump more; those who cannot afford deeper tube wells buy water from them, transferring wealth to larger landowners.
- A study in Discover Sustainability found that in Sangrur and Barnala larger farms earned higher returns but had lower groundwater productivity in paddy than smaller farms.
Punjab’s rice-wheat system is also a national food-security asset: the central pool depends on its procurement, and farmers stay with paddy because alternative crops lack assured prices, storage and processing. Pricing water or power without that market support would hurt the same smallholders the editorial wants to protect.
Use part of the electricity subsidy bill to support smallholders directly, help farmers collectivise irrigation infrastructure, finance the shift to other crops, and scale up ‘Pani Bachao, Paisa Kamao’, so that benefits follow the cultivator, including tenants, rather than the owner of land or pump.
Cite this page: Water Wealth: Why Punjab's Groundwater Crisis Is Also a Crisis of Inequality — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis
