‘India needs to define groundwater rights’

At a time when groundwater has emerged as a major source of water for irrigation in India, and also the reason for growth in agriculture and food security, there is an urgent need to define water rights. This has been stated in a working paper on 'Groundwater Irrigation in India: Gains, Costs and Risks' by a faculty at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA).

The need emerges from the fact the under the existing property rights, groundwater is considered as an open resource and the farmers make investments in it thinking that they have absolute rights to groundwater beneath their land, treating it as their private property, says the paper written by Prof Vasant Gandhi and NV Namboodiri.

As per the report, groundwater irrigation accounts for over 60% of the irrigated area in India and it is estimated that now over 70% of India's foodgrain production comes from irrigated agriculture.

The paper states that considering groundwater an open resource results in unchecked extraction. Some institutional provisions are in place to check over-exploitation of groundwater. These include withdrawal of institutional support for sinking new wells and restriction on electric connections for irrigation purpose. But they have proved largely ineffective. Often, such measures are taken only when the situation reaches an alarming stage.

In order to make the institutions more effective, there is an urgent need to define water rights. Formal as well as informal institutions need to take part in this. "The establishment of tradable private property rights in groundwater would be a major institutional reform. This could also empower communities to establish rights over the water they manage and address the issues of efficiency, equity and sustainability," states the paper.

The paper also sites examples of many foreign countries and adds that bold institutional and legislative steps have been taken by them in face of similar challenges concerning groundwater. It is necessary to separate water rights from land rights, but no such provisions have been made so far in the national groundwater law.

"The rights to groundwater belong to the land owner. The rights to groundwater are transferred to anyone to whom the land is transferred. There is no limitation on how much groundwater a particular land owner can draw. This leads to a concentration of water ownership with the land owners in India and a lack of control over the extraction of water," states the paper. Further it states that use of groundwater could also discriminate between farmers.

"Water markets can play an important role in reducing the inequalities between resource poor and rich farmers in the short run but in long run they may result in an adverse impact. The excessive use of groundwater can cause an increase in the inequity among the farming community in the long run," adds the paper.