India must continue with path-breaking Atal Bhujal Yojana to protect water

Participatory groundwater management is the lifeline of India's economy and society

One of the most remarkable but unsung initiatives of the Modi government — and for this it has not received enough credit — is the Atal Bhujal Yojana (ABHY), launched in 2019. Aimed at fostering a participatory approach towards groundwater management, the ABHY has been a great success.

 

India is the largest consumer of groundwater in the world. China and the United States (US) come next, but India’s consumption is greater than these two countries’ put together. Groundwater provides 80 per cent of India’s urban and rural drinking water, nearly 70 per cent of our irrigation needs, as also 90 per cent of India’s industrial water. Over the last four decades, around 84 per cent of the addition to irrigation has come from groundwater, which can be said to be the foundations of India’s food security.

 

A major concern, however, is that we have not managed this resource carefully. We have indulged in competitive groundwater over-extraction, which has meant that around 60 per cent of India’s districts have suffered a rapid decline in the water table and have serious issues relating to water quality. In many parts of India, water, which took thousands of years to accumulate below the ground, has been wiped out within decades. Worse, in large parts of India there are pollutants such as arsenic, fluoride and nitrate in potable water, creating health hazards. One hundred and fifty-one districts, spread across 18 states, now report uranium in their groundwater. 

 

The most shocking finding, in the first study of its kind (Nature: Scientific Reports, 2025, 15:41389), is that there is uranium poisoning in the breast milk of lactating mothers and their breastfed infants in Bihar [U238, half-life of 4.47 billion years]. It is clear that we cannot afford to neglect the urgent and massively significant task of addressing the crisis of India’s groundwater, which is a veritable national lifeline!

 

It is here that the ABHY becomes so important. Groundwater is a common-pool resource and groundwater management is what the science of public policy calls a “wicked problem”. Such problems have no magic-bullet solution. They typically arise from a deep inter-connectedness of multiple factors and, therefore, demand trans-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder action. India’s nearly 50 million wells and tubewells cannot be managed using a typical bureaucratic command-and-control, licence-quota-permit raj, kind of approach. They require people’s mobilisation and engagement. This is precisely what the ABHY has done.

 

In the six years since its launch, ABHY has been implemented in 8,203 gram panchayats across 229 blocks of 80 water-stressed districts in seven states: Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. The scheme has recorded remarkable success and has substantially met or exceeded its intended outcomes. In all 8,203 gram panchayats, water-security plans (WSPs) have been prepared with multi-stakeholder engagement. This entails informing farmers who share the same aquifer (storehouse of groundwater) about the nature of their aquifer, how much water it can hold, and how quickly it can lose that water, so that farmers can understand the consequences of over-extraction, undertake crop-water-budgeting, and, accordingly, make changes in the crops they grow. 

 

Based on this information, farmers themselves can prepare WSPs so that water security can be ensured for the gram panchayat. The ABHY has also ensured improved monitoring and disclosure of groundwater data in all 8,203 gram panchayats, through installing piezometers, digital water-level recorders, rain gauges, and other equipment. Efficient water-use practices, which reduce water consumption, now cover 893,000 hectares under the ABHY. 

 

As a result, there has been a rise in the water table in 180 of the 229 ABHY water-stressed blocks. Overall, the ABHY has benefited 15.76 million people, with a significant improvement in women’s participation in community groundwater management. The “Impact Assessment Report” of the Quality Council of India has validated these outcomes.

 

The enormity of these achievements needs to be underscored. The ABHY is no regular government scheme based on large expenditures and a creation of hard infrastructure. It is a knowledge-based scheme that encourages people’s participation. It did, therefore, take a lot of persuasion within government to make the ABHY see the light of day. Understandably taking credit for something no other government had done before, in his speech delivered at the launch of the ABHY, the Prime Minister highlighted the key pillars on which sustainable and equitable water management must always stand: (a) respect for the immense diversity of India while planning for water; (b) focus on management and distribution of water; and (c) raising people’s awareness and their participation in water management. It is heartening to see despite the challenges such a difficult scheme was bound to face, the ABHY has diligently aspired to follow the Prime Minister’s mandate.

 

It has, therefore, been most disheartening to read a recent communication from the Ministry of Jal Shakti (October 25, 2025) to the project directors in the seven ABHY states. stating that “the Atal Bhujal Yojana shall stand closed with immediate effect”. The decision is all the more perplexing, given that the government has itself acknowledged the massive problems being faced in the implementation of the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), which aims to provide safe drinking water to each household. 

 

A properly implemented ABHY could hold the key to a successful JJM by ensuring the sustainability of groundwater sources that provide water under the JJM. 

 

Given the grave water crisis facing the country, it is to be hoped that there would be a serious reconsideration of this hasty and unwise decision to close down the Atal Bhujal Yojana. Indeed, what is required is to take this low-cost, pioneering programme to scale, while learning the right lessons from its early experiences.

 

The author is distinguished professor, Shiv Nadar University. He chaired the government committee to draft the National Water Policy in 2019-20