Exploring the Determinants of Groundwater Exploitation Among Indian Districts

The annual groundwater draft of India is the largest in the world as of 2020. The agricultural sector alone consumes about 89 per cent of groundwater draft. Besides providing assured irrigation, groundwater has significantly helped increase the cropping intensity, productivity and production of crops. But, due to the continuous exploitation of groundwater, not only has the water level been depleted but the cost of water has increased. An attempt is made in this study to find out the determinants of groundwater exploitation by taking data from 235 Indian districts drawn from different states covering two-time periods namely 1990-93 and 2017-20. The study indicated that the number of districts exploiting groundwater more than 50 per cent to its annual recharge has increased from 21 per cent in 1990-93 to 69 per cent in 2017-20. The regression analysis shows that the average size of holding is the most important factor in positively influencing groundwater exploitation, whereas the percentage of surface irrigated area to net irrigated area negatively and significantly influences the groundwater exploitation. The analysis also suggests that the impact of these two variables in determining groundwater exploitation have increased significantly over time.