Are wells a potential threat to farmers' wellbeing? The case of deteriorating groundwater irrigation in Tamilnadu

With the burgeoning population and fast industrial expansion, demand for water also goes up substantially. In order to meet the food grain requirements of the population there is an acute need for expanding the area under the irrigated agriculture. Since in many States, surface water sources have been utilized fully, there has been a massive expansion of the groundwater irrigation. With the progressive decline in the water table farmers have resorted to the competitive deepening of the wells. This has resulted in the increased costs of well irrigation and further has resulted in a new inequity among the well owners and between well-owning and non-well-owning farmers. Similarly, the urban water demands have increased tremendously for domestic and for industrial purposes. While there has been an ever-raising demand for water, hardly has there been any effort to develop the infrastructure to treat the used water. This is dangerous and contributes to the pollution of the existing water stock. Therefore, water resources are under severe threat not only because of the ever-increasing demand and competing demand (by various sectors) but also because of the diminishing quality caused due to the discharge of untreated domestic sewage and industrial effluent. In the coastal regions the problem gets compounded due to seawaters intrusion. The main objective of this paper is to show how the degradation of the groundwater resource base through over-extraction and pollution contribute to inequity, conflicts, competition and above all to indebtedness and poverty. [authors abstract]