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Furthermore, because groundwater can
generally be accessed at the time and in
the amount a farmer requires (by turning
on the tube well pump), farmers are
wholly dependent on the availability
and reliability of the power supply. With
uncertain power availability, they tend
to pump when power is available rather
than when crops need water. This leads
to over-extraction of groundwater, evaporation
loss and lowered water tables,
with farmers using higher-capacity
pumps to lift water from ever deeper
levels. The result is reduced on-farm
productivity and lower farm profits.
The depletion of groundwater
resources strengthens this selfreinforcing
cycle, which has led to
an increasing number of areas being
designated as critical and over-exploited.
One consequence of this phenomenon
is the gradual exclusion of farmers
who lack the means to chase the falling
water table by investing in larger bore
well and irrigation pump sets.
The pace of groundwater withdrawals
and use in India is intimately tied
to energy prices. Reference was made
earlier to the low marginal cost of
pumping on account of the flat-rate
system of power pricing. The use of
flat rates for electricity, combined with
less than fully reliable power supplies,
encourages farmers who own wells to
maximize pumping of groundwater and
sales to neighboring farmers in informal
water markets.
The growing financial burden of
India’s state-run power utilities or state
electricity boards (SEBs) can be largely
attributed to the low-cost recovery of
farm electricity. States such as Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab and Tamil
Nadu have a free-power policy for agricultural
consumers; others like Gujarat
and Maharashtra have kept their effective
tariffs for the agriculture sector as
low as 0.9 to 1.3 cents per kilowatthour.
The below-cost supply to farmers
is compensated by state governments in
two ways: by state governments providing
direct subsidies to SEBs and by having
industrial and commercial users pay
tariffs higher than the average cost of
supply (e.g., cross-subsidy).
Despite financial support provided by
the state governments, there still exists
a revenue gap that imposes financial
burdens on the SEBs. For instance, as a
result of providing flat and/or unmetered
electricity to farmers, the total all-India
state power subsidy in 2008–09 was
estimated at $6.6 billion. This represents
more than 20 percent of the total all-
India state fiscal deficit, of which power
sector subsidies are one contributing
source. To put these numbers in perspective,
the $6.6 billion power subsidy
is comparable to the country’s annual
expenditure for education and more
than double its expenditure for health.
Falling Groundwater Levels
The performance of the Indian power
sector, the sixth-largest in the world,
increasingly depends on how efficiently
irrigation water is pumped, used and
paid for. Groundwater withdrawal is an
energy-intensive operation performed
throughout the agricultural sector,
resulting in a fourth of the power consumption
in the country being used for
roughly 50 percent of the national irrigation
consumption.
Many regions in India are witnessing
shortages in water supply, with groundwater
levels falling as much as 1 meter
every three years—to the point where
they are 10 to 20 meters below their
level of 40 years ago. Approximately
12 percent of all aquifers are severely
overdrawn, and the problem is exacerbated
by the runoff of surface water.
Lowered water tables can be attributed
to the overexploitation of groundwater
by farmers. Three states, Rajasthan,
Punjab and Haryana, have reached a
stage where even their current level of
groundwater extraction is exceeding
recharge and is therefore unsustainable.
Three other states, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat
and Uttar Pradesh, seem to be fast
approaching that stage.
Overexploitation, which has been
directly linked to unreliable power
supplies as well as suboptimal energy
and water pricing policies, is also a
significant contributor to India’s growing
carbon emissions, as considerable
additional pumping energy is required
to extract ever deeper water supplies.
In addition, overwithdrawal, coupled
with the lack of effective groundwater
management strategies—such as
India’s Water
Situation at a Glance
n Rainfall is erratic in four out of
10 years.
n 68 percent of India’s cultivated
area is subjected to varying degrees
of drought.
n Each year, about 50 million people
are exposed to drought.
n 35 percent of the country’s land
area receives between 750 and
1,125 millimeters of rainfall every
year and is drought-prone.
n 21 percent of the country’s area
receives less than 500 millimeters
of rainfall.
n Most drought-prone areas lie in
the arid (19.6 percent), semi-arid
(37 percent) and sub-humid (21
percent) regions of the country,
accounting for 77.6 percent of its
total land area.
aquifer recharge and the loss of topsoil
due to commercial exploitation of forests—has
led to the widespread use of
lower-quality groundwater, exposing
affected populations to potentially serious
long-term health risks from fluoride,
increased salinity and microbiological
contamination.
The national and state governments
are working on a variety of business and
technological models that advance enduse
energy and water efficiency in Indian
agriculture. There are also ongoing pilot
demonstrations for contract models that
typically involve utility-farmer-private
sector partnerships, with benefits arising
out of energy savings allocated in proportion
to the risks each party assumes.
For farmers like Raj Kumar, a solution
to the age-old problem of rural poverty
due to the inability to water crops
as needed is inextricably linked to the
water-energy nexus. n
Srinivasan Padmanabhan was a visiting
research scholar and a professorial
lecturer in the Energy, Resources and
Environment Program in spring 2011
and is director of the South Asia Regional
Initiative for Energy at the U.S. Agency
for International Development.
2011–2012 43