India’s Ground Water Irrigation Economy: The Challenge of Balancing Livelihoods and Environment

Stagnating agriculture and consequent failure of rapid economic growth to bring about poverty reduction as envisaged have been major constraints for India’s economic growth. Contrary to the view that slow-down in public investment for irrigation development is mainly responsible for the deceleration of agricultural growth, the paper argues that in spite of the Government initiatives and substantial investments in irrigation development, the area irrigated by public irrigation systems in India has stagnated or even declined. India’s irrigation economy has been undergoing a dramatic transformation with the control of irrigation shifting from the government to the individual farmers through millions of wells owned and operated by them. Though the booming tube well irrigation has generated substantial socio-ecological dividends in terms of flood mitigation and reduction in water logging and soil salinization, it has also been responsible for resource depletion and contamination of ground water in some parts of the country, leading to various adverse environmental and socio-economic consequences. There is need for achieving the right balance between supply and demand side measures for forging a sustainable ground water governance regime. Problems o