Groundwater is central to India’s water and food security. Almost 50 per cent of urban and 85 per cent of rural India depend on groundwater to fulfil its domestic water needs. In agriculture, 64 per cent of irrigated area uses groundwater, abstracted by more than 20 million wells.
However, this was not always the case. At the time of Independence, the contribution of groundwater to irrigation was less than 30 per cent. But then starting 1960s, the groundwater irrigation boomed with the advent of modern drilling and pumping technologies and enabling policies like subsidised electricity. This was instrumental in the success of the green revolution.
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