Punjab has not solved its groundwater crisis. It has only proved one crucial truth: when canal water reaches the farmer, the tubewell can rest.That is the real message behind the latest groundwater reports. The improvement is welcome, but it should not be dressed up as victory. Punjab is still extracting far more groundwater than nature is able to recharge. The fever has come down, but the disease remains.
A recent report in The Tribune noted that groundwater extraction in Punjab has fallen from 164 per cent in 2023 to 156 per cent in 2025. The number of over-exploited blocks has declined from 117 to 111. Groundwater levels have improved in 81 of Punjab’s 153 blocks. Blocks such as Pakhowal, Sirhind, Kahnuwan, Samrala, Tarsikka and Dera Bassi have reportedly shown more than 10 per cent improvement.
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These numbers are encouraging, but they must be read honestly. A groundwater extraction level of 156 per cent does not mean Punjab is safe. It means Punjab is still living by overdraft. It is withdrawing more water than its natural income.
The figures placed in Parliament are even more alarming. In reply to a Lok Sabha starred question, the Union Jal Shakti Ministry stated that Punjab’s annual groundwater recharge is 18.60 billion cubic metres. Its annual extractable groundwater resource is 16.80 billion cubic metres. But annual extraction is 26.27 billion cubic metres. Out of 153 assessment units, 111 are over-exploited, 10 are critical, 15 are semi-critical and only 17 are safe.
This is not merely a water statistic. This is Punjab’s future being pumped out every summer.
That is why my accompanying field video matters. My fields have received canal water. For a farmer, this is not theory. When water comes through the canal and the khal, the tubewell can be switched off. The motor rests. The aquifer rests. Power is saved. The pressure on the state’s power subsidy is reduced. The farmer also feels less anxious because he is not dependent only on a borewell that may fail, deepen or become uneconomical.
The hidden cost of Punjab’s groundwater addiction is now visible below the soil. In many villages, farmers who once managed with tubewell bores of about 150 to 200 feet now speak of bores going down to 400, 500 or even 600 feet. In some pockets, it is still deeper. A deeper bore is not just a deeper hole in the earth. It means higher drilling cost, more casing, heavier pipe, a more expensive submersible pump, stronger cable and a higher horsepower motor.
The farmer pays more to reach water. The motor consumes more power to lift it. The government pays more through the agricultural power subsidy. And the aquifer continues to lose.
So the crisis is not only ecological. It is economic. The falling water table is hitting the farmer’s pocket, the state’s budget and Punjab’s future at the same time.
Punjab must also ask some uncomfortable political questions. For decades, canal systems was weakened (intentionally???), watercourses decayed and canal delivery became unreliable in large parts of the state. Farmers shifted to tubewells because tubewells were immediate, private, convenient and backed by free power (was it deliberate?)
There was another foolish distortion. At one time, a political leadership treated canal water as an electoral instrument. Canal focus was pushed disproportionately towards the southern and south-western parts of Punjab to cultivate vote banks, while large parts of the rest of the state were left to depend on tubewells. Even that region did not benefit properly in the long run. Without scientific water management, parts of the south-west ended up facing waterlogging and salinity. This was politically clever but hydrologically foolish. It ignored one basic truth: water policy cannot be designed for elections. It must be designed for generations.
Credit must be given where it is due. The present Punjab government has increased the emphasis on canal irrigation, and this is a good initiative. Punjab needed this correction badly. For too long, we moved away from flowing canals to deeper borewells, from community water to private extraction, from natural restraint to unlimited pumping.
The Tribune report says officials have linked the improvement to increased use of canal water. It mentions restoration of defunct canals, the Kandi Canal becoming operational after more than 40 years, new canals in districts such as Malerkotla, Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Fazilka and Muktsar, and lift-irrigation schemes in Ropar and Hoshiarpur.
Hindustan Times has also reported that 17 blocks reversed the falling water-table trend between 2022 and 2025. A Water Resources Department official told the newspaper that canal water use had risen from 22 per cent to 78 per cent in three to four years. The official material of the Punjab Water Resources Department says thousands of watercourses have been made operational and more than 950 villages have received canal water for irrigation for the first time.
The message is simple: when canals are revived, watercourses repaired and farmers reconnected to surface water, groundwater dependence starts falling.
But canal revival alone cannot save Punjab if the crop pattern remains unchanged. Paddy remains the elephant standing in Punjab’s fields. The farmer should not be made the villain. Punjab grew paddy because national food security policy, MSP procurement, assured purchase and public distribution systems pushed Punjab in that direction. The Indian Union wanted rice and wheat. Punjab delivered. The farmer responded rationally to the incentives placed before him.
Punjab does not consume most of the rice it produces. In effect, Punjab grows cheap rice for the national consumer while exhausting its groundwater and borrowing to subsidise the electricity that pumps it out. This is not a sustainable model. It is not even an honest model.
PRS analysis of the Punjab Budget 2026-27 says Punjab is estimated to spend Rs 15,550 crore on power subsidies, including Rs 7,715 crore for agriculture. Every acre irrigated by canal water reduces the hours for which subsidised tubewell power is needed. This is not only an environmental saving. It is a fiscal saving.
The subsidy burden also changes with depth. A shallow tubewell with a smaller motor and a deep tubewell with a high horsepower submersible motor are not the same economic burden. When water is lifted from 400 to 600 feet, energy requirement rises, motor capacity rises and the cost to the state rises.
The policy package that created this crisis is clear: assured paddy procurement, free power, tubewell dependence and weakening canal delivery. Blaming the farmer alone is unfair. If policy created the crisis, policy must now correct it.
Indian Express reported that advancement of paddy transplantation dates could lead to huge groundwater extraction in a short period. One estimate said staggered early transplantation could draw out around 10.12 BCM of water in just 20 days. Compare that with Punjab’s annual groundwater recharge of 18.60 BCM, and the danger becomes obvious.
Punjab now needs a full water transition. Every abandoned canal, minor, distributary and watercourse must be revived wherever technically possible. Tail-end farmers must be protected because a canal system is judged not at the head, but at the tail. Paddy diversification must become real, not rhetorical. Farmers need assured procurement, processing, market linkage, crop insurance and income confidence before they can shift to maize, pulses, oilseeds or horticulture. The power subsidy debate must be handled with sensitivity, but not avoided. The farmer should not be punished for a policy structure created by governments, but incentives must reward water saving. Groundwater data must become local and public. Every block should have a water budget.
Water quality also cannot be ignored. Parliament has acknowledged localised occurrence of arsenic, fluoride and uranium beyond prescribed limits in isolated pockets of Punjab. A falling water table and deteriorating water quality together create a double crisis: less water and unsafe water.
Punjab’s water civilisation was never built on greed. It was built on rivers, canals, ponds, wells, restraint and community systems. The tubewell was once a symbol of progress. Today, in many areas, it has become a warning sign. Every deeper bore is a bill sent to the future.
The current canal initiative deserves appreciation because it shows that correction is possible. My own fields receiving canal water are a small but meaningful example. When the water came, the tubewell rested. That image contains the policy direction Punjab needs.
But Punjab must now ask itself some hard questions.
If Punjab is growing rice for the national food system, should the cost of saving Punjab’s water be Punjab’s burden alone?