Had this been the general environment, then a CAG report would have become a cause for great concern that in many states of the country, groundwater is being over-exploited. Many important information like groundwater comes out from this report. For example, there are many states where groundwater consumption has become excessive.
The atmosphere in the country is such in which the basic problems related to common life go unnoticed. Neither the political parties worry about them nor the media takes their search and news. Otherwise, if there was a general environment, then a CAG report would have become a cause for great concern that in many states of the country, groundwater is being over-exploited than the water reserves. Many important information like groundwater comes out from this report. For example, the national average of groundwater consumption in India is 63 per cent. That is, 63 percent of the water that goes inside the ground in a year is being withdrawn. There are many states in the country where the groundwater consumption figures are more than the national average. The CAG has reported that four states of India are consuming more than 100 percent of groundwater. That is, the amount of water that is stored inside the ground there in a year, more water is taken out than that. These states are Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, and Rajasthan. In fact, in 13 states of the country, groundwater consumption is more than the national average.
If seen at the district level, 267 districts of the country have extracted more groundwater than the national average. In some parts, consumption has reached an extremely alarming level of 385 per cent. These figures are based on data from 2004 to 2017. It is possible that in the last four years the condition has become more serious. The report also quoted the Central Ground Water Board as saying that the groundwater present in many areas of the country contains arsenic, fluoride, nitrate, iron and salinity more than the permissible limits. In the states where this situation was found, there is a shortage of staff in the departments related to groundwater. Significantly, till December 2019, with the intention of conserving groundwater, a law was made in 19 states of the country. But till date only this law has been partially implemented in only four states. However, according to government data, 89 percent of groundwater consumption in India is in the irrigation sector. Nine percent of groundwater is used for domestic purposes and two percent for commercial purposes. And how worried the government is about these conditions, it is evident from the fact that the concerned ministry could spend only about half of the sanctioned budget.
