An Appraisal of Legal Framework for Groundwater Governance in Punjab

Abstract

Groundwater (GW) in India is emerging as the major source of water which contributes about 85% to drinking water supply in rural areas and 62% to irrigation. In Punjab, GW provides irrigation to more than 72% of the area under the rice-wheat cropping system and it has played a key role in its emergence as 'granary of India’. But the area under rice, a water-guzzling crop grown in the state during summer, has increased tremendously, i.e., from 3.90 lac hectares in 1970-71 to 31.03 lac hectares in 2018-19. The runaway growth of GW irrigation has also contributed to the depletion of the water table and thereby posing a huge environmental challenge. In this paper, an attempt has been made to review the development of the legal framework for GW governance and its effect on the groundwater situation in the state. However, the increasing stress on aquifers due to GW irrigation has been reduced to an acceptable degree by strengthening and enforcement of legal framework coupled with a set of incentives and disincentives for improving its efficiency. The Punjab Preservation of Sub-soil Water Act 2009 coupled with some minor technical interventions have contributed to a reduction in the consumption of irrigation water by 413liters per kg of production of rice due to a change in the crop calendar of rice and following the wheat. It is being increasingly acknowledged that for effective GW governance in Punjab, science and policy for GW use need to ?ank and complementsthe legal frameworks.