Groundwater Management Governance in India

Abstract

Water scarcity problem in India has become grave and the present per capita availability of water is 1486 cubic meters in the year 2021 (Acharya, 2021). Per capita availability of water below 1700 cubic meters is considered as water stressed and if this number falls to 1100 cubic meters the country may be declared as water scarce and water insecure. One of the most important aspects of achieving water security is to work on the conservation and recharge of groundwater (Mishra et.al., 2021). State plays a pivotal role in ensuring efficient groundwater governance and implementation of relevant laws and policies. This conceptual paper is an effort in capturing a snapshot of the present government machinery in India to manage its groundwater resources. Various government websites, policy papers, bill documents and reports were reviewed to understand the hierarchical structure of groundwater governance in the country. Impact of each of their work on others was studied to understand how implementation and its pace would be affected. The laws, ministry, departments and ongoing policies that constitute the government machinery for groundwater management have been presented at the end. The insights shared herein may be of help to anyone looking to work as a stakeholder in groundwater management. Researchers looking to contribute to groundwater scenario of the country may find easy access to the governance structure. Anyone studying policy implications of national level policies may also find it helpful to understand how information and power flows in the system to ensure smooth implementation. Literature review carried out to look for a similar snapshot of present groundwater governance did not bring to surface any work capturing such a comprehensive discussion as covered in this paper.