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
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.
Source: Water Wealth: Why Punjab's Groundwater Crisis Is Also a Crisis of Inequality — Ujiyari.com | Free UPSC & State PCS Editorial Analysis
