Inequalities in Access to Groundwater for Irrigation in An Agriculturally Developed Region of India

Abstract

The state of Haryana is a part of agriculturally developed region in northwest India. Irrigation system in the region is heavily dependent on groundwater resource which has got depleted during last two decades. Like other agriculturally developed states of India, decline in water table and diminishing accessibility of groundwater are big issues for the farmers in the state. Based on primary data, the present study assesses the levels and determinants of physical and economic accessibility of groundwater to farmers in different groundwater availability regimes. It brings out that there are striking inequalities in physical access to water between groundwater rich north-eastern region and water-scarce south-western region of the state. Furthermore, the physical accessibility of groundwater significantly varies across class size of farmers particularly in the latter region. There is also a huge gap in the economic accessibility of groundwater between north-eastern and south-western parts of the state. It also varies greatly across the class size of farmers and the magnitude of inequality is very high in groundwater scarcity region. Physical access to groundwater is largely determined by the cost of tube well irrigation and same is true in case of economic accessibility too. Overall the access to groundwater in the state is inversely proportional to the cost of groundwater extraction. Farm size and fragmentation of land holdings are other dominant factors in determination of groundwater accessibility in water-scarcity areas in south-western region of the state.