Irrigation and water: canals, groundwater and the water crisis

Irrigation transforms farming from a gamble on monsoon rain into a more predictable activity, allowing multiple crops, higher-yielding varieties and diversification into vegetables and other high-value crops. India has built a large irrigation system, including major dams and canals, tanks, wells and tube wells, and micro-irrigation such as drip and sprinkler systems. Yet water remains a constraint: agriculture consumes the largest share of freshwater, monsoon variability is high, and groundwater in many regions is falling, raising costs and risks for farmers.

Surface irrigation through canals, managed by state irrigation departments, suffers from siltation, seepage, poor maintenance and inequitable distribution, with head-reach farmers near canal heads often receiving more water than tail-end farmers. Participatory irrigation management, in which water user associations take responsibility for local distribution and maintenance, has shown promise in some places but remains weak where associations lack funds, authority or genuine farmer control. Pricing is also contested: water charges rarely cover maintenance costs, which starves upkeep, but raising charges hurts small farmers unless service improves first.

Groundwater irrigation, driven by electric and diesel pumps, gave farmers individual control and helped the Green Revolution spread, but it created a new crisis. Free or heavily subsidised electricity in some states encouraged over-pumping, water tables fell, wells deepened, and energy subsidies grew. The Central Ground Water Authority and state groundwater laws aim to regulate extraction, but enforcement is difficult when millions of wells are involved and livelihoods depend on pumping. The result is a classic common-pool problem: each farmer's pumping is rational individually, but collective over-extraction harms all.

Policy responses emphasise efficiency and conjunctive use: drip and sprinkler irrigation under schemes such as Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, watershed development, rainwater harvesting, crop choices suited to water availability, and pricing that reflects scarcity without excluding small farmers. The Jal Shakti Abhiyan and related campaigns promote conservation, but analysts argue that lasting change requires measuring groundwater, empowering local institutions, aligning energy and water pricing, and shifting cropping away from water-intensive crops in water-scarce regions. Water management is therefore as much institutional as technical.