Groundwater resources in India: an arena for diverse competition

Abstract

There is evidence of a looming groundwater crisis in India. Unlike in the case of surface water, competition around groundwater generally does not result in open conflicts. Measurability and visibility of surface water accord a clearer public perception of water quantities, which leads to conflicts. Groundwater in an aquifer is sourced in a dispersed manner, and boundaries, quantities and interdependencies are less visible or measurable. Hence, groundwater resources go through intense and intricate competition between users and uses before open conflicts begin. Competition occurs with reference to sources rather than around the resource. The interdependency of sources is a function of changing patterns of usage as intricacies of aquifer characteristics come into play. Governance institutions and regulatory frameworks of groundwater need to be sensitive to the various forms in which groundwater competition manifests in different hydrogeological settings, and the consequences of this in terms of access and rights, in relation to issues of equity and justice.

Keywords:

• access
• aquifers
• competition
• transmissivity
• storativity

Notes

1. An aquifer is made up of rock or rock material that has the capacity to store and transmit water so that it becomes available in sufficient quantities to wells and springs. An aquifer, therefore, stores and transmits groundwater.

2. A taluka is the lowest level of government administration above the village level.

3. Hard rocks are the ancient igneous and metamorphic rocks with low primary porosity and permeability.

4. The cost of drilling a 100-metre bore well and installing a 5 HP pump in hard-rock aquifers ranges between Rs. 30,000 and 40,000. The cost of drilling, screening and completing a tube well – 100 metres deep – and installing a 10 HP pump in an alluvial aquifer is between two and six times that of a bore well.

5. Groundwater conflict around the use by Coca-Cola from the groundwater system supplying Plachimada Gram Panchayat area led to a protracted legal battle over rights to groundwater.

6. This national hydrogeological typology of India was developed using different sources by Kulkarni et al. (2009b) for the Mid-term Appraisal of India's Eleventh Five Year Plan (Planning Commission, Government of India, 2011).