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He said, in the short run, rationing of agricultural power supply will be the only effective and practical approach to ground water management. Under the Jyotigram Scheme, the government has invested heavily in rewiring electricity infrastructure in the rural areas to separate feeders and ration power supply to farmers.
He said since ground water remained the mainstay of small farmers and the rural poor in India, governments and political leaders were reluctant to adopt a heavy-handed approach to curtail its demand. The political objective is to attain environmental goals without hitting the poor. Experts have suggested the pricing of groundwater, but this has faced formidable logistic and administrative challenges, he said in his paper, ‘Climate Change and Ground Water: India’s Opportunity for Mitigation and Adaptation’.
He said Gujarat is one of the hotspots in the country as far as climate change is concerned. It has continued overexploitation of groundwater, which has severely curtailed the resilience of the aquifers and their ability to stabilise farming livelihood in the face of heightened hydro-climatic variability. He added that the region also accounts for high emission of green house gases because of the use of coal-based power for pumping out groundwater. “Ninety-six per cent of India’s electricity use in ground water pumping is concentrated in eleven western states and peninsular India.” he said.
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