A top agricultural scientist has said the availability of water for agriculture in the country could decline by as much as 12 per cent by 2025.

Unless immediate corrective actions are taken to tackle the current phenomenon of over-exploiting water, the already evident water crisis in the country would assume disastrous proportions by 2025, Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research Mangala Rai told Deccan Herald.
The requirement of water for agriculture in 2025, according to him, would be 25 per cent more than the current levels.

That would be the requirement to meet the expected increase in demand for food grains by 2025. But the actual availability of water would be 12 per cent less than the current levels.

Ground water exploitation

Painting a grim scenario, a recent World Bank report on Agriculture Development has raised alarm over indiscriminate exploitation of ground water, leading to sharp fall in ground water availability

According to the report, in India ground water withdrawals have surged from less than 20 cubic kilometers per year to more than 250 cubic kilometers per year since the 1950s.

The largest areas under ground water irrigation in developing countries are in India and China and unless corrective steps are taken, expansion of irrigation would suffer heavily in coming years, according to the report.

As a way out of the disastrous course, Rai said that the country could produce 40-50 million tonnes more food grains by increasing the water-use efficiency level by 10 per cent.

He suggested that farmers should develop latest varieties of rice which are considered less water guzzling.
The Bank report has suggested that subsidies could have adversely impacted water use.

It said that subsides for canal irrigation, power and fertiliser might have led to farmers taking to water-intensive varieties of rice and wheat. The result: over-exploitation of ground water in the country.