• India, with nearly 18% of the world’s population, occupies about 2.4% of the total geographical area and consumes 4% of total water resources.
• Indian cities cater to about 48 % of their water supply from groundwater. 
• Over the last 50 years, the number of borewells has grown from 1 million to 20 million, making India the world’s largest user of groundwater.
• India’s rapidly growing economy and population are straining its groundwater resources, which could lead to adverse economic and ecological impacts.

Importance of groundwater

• Groundwater is the backbone of India’s agriculture and drinking water security in rural and urban areas.
• Groundwater fulfils India’s 80% drinking water needs and 6 % of irrigation needs.
• The theme of UN World Water Day 2022 was ‘Groundwater, Making the Invisible Visible’ is a reflection of the importance given to the resource across the globe.
• It is important to ensure source sustainability to provide safe drinking water to all rural households by 2024, under the Jal Jeevan Mission.

Government’s effort for conservation of Groundwater

• Initiatives have been taken for the effective management and regulation of groundwater.
• Examples are Atal Bhujal Yojana (ABY) and National Project on Aquifer Management (NAQUIM):
• With the goal of “participatory groundwater management”, ABY looks to inculcate behavioural change made possible by incentivization.
• NAQUIM aims to help gather authentic data and enable informed decision-making.
• A Heli-borne-based survey has been used along with traditional exploratory methods for rapid and accurate aquifer mapping.
• There are around 65,025 groundwater monitoring stations in India, which include 7,885 automated stations.
• The numbers are set to go beyond 84,000; in this, the number of automated stations will rise to over 35,000, with a special focus on identifying high groundwater-extracting industrial and urban clusters and groundwater-stressed regions.
• Dynamic groundwater assessments will be done annually now and a groundwater estimation committee formed to revise the assessment methodology.
• A software named ‘India-Groundwater Resource Estimation System (IN-GRES)’ has been developed.
• The government launched the app Jaldoot to capture data on groundwater tables.
• As per Groundwater assessment in 2022:
• A time-bound and scientific approach is being adopted to monitor precious water resources.
• There has been a 3% reduction in the number of ‘overexploited’ groundwater units and a 4% increase in the number of ‘safe’ category units as compared to 2017.
• There is reduction in annual extraction of 9.53 billion cubic meters.
• There is also reduction in irrigation (208.49 BCM), industrial (3.64 BCM) and domestic water (27.05 BCM) use.
• 9.37 BCM of additional groundwater potential was created through artificial water conservation structures.

Challenges

• Unregulated extraction: No limit on how much groundwater should extract
• Excessive irrigation: Groundwater levels are hitting a low level at a rapid rate. 
• Lack of a comprehensive and integrated land use planning framework.
• Poor knowledge of groundwater management systems 
• Groundwater pollution: Central Ground Water Board shows that groundwater across 21 states has arsenic contamination.
• Accelerated population growth: Increased demand for water because of a large population.
• A large number of unaccounted and unregulated private water wells
• Ineffective and insufficient legal and regulatory mandate

Looking ahead

• Need to focus on the Integrated Water Resource Management framework.
• It promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land, and related resources. 
• Adopting water-sensitive urban design and planning can help maintain the water cycle by managing groundwater, surface water, and rainwater for water demand and supply. 
• Provision for wastewater recycling and its reuse to promote the circular economy of one water cycle.
• It will help in source sustainability and groundwater pollution mitigation. 
• Interventions like rainwater harvesting, stormwater harvesting, rain garden, and bio-retention ponds that intercept rainfall with vegetated land are low-maintenance alternatives to conventional systems.
• These will help in groundwater recharge.
• The strengthening of regulatory frameworks and stakeholder participation needs to be formulated and imposed.
• Aquifer characterization and robust monitoring of groundwater quality, as well as quantity, are imperative.
• Data collection and formulation of effective regulatory legal policies, laws, and acts for better management will go a long way.

The groundwater resource assessment report 2022 shows a brighter future for groundwater situations in the country. However, with an increasing population necessary step must be taken to make India a water-surplus nation. With help of good policies and various initiatives on groundwater in India, the government will be able to achieve sustainable goals early.