Telangana Facing Groundwater Crisis in El Nino Year
“When the 2025-26 crop season began, Telangana’s groundwater reserves were 506 tmc ft, of which 237 tmc ft have been used. All that is left for use from now onwards is 269 tmc ft (thousand million cubic feet),” a senior government official said.
Hyderabad:The invisible resource of groundwater, on which lakhs of farmers rely on for agriculture, is depleting with the government indicating that the only direction the reserves will go is down, from here on.
“When the 2025-26 crop season began, Telangana’s groundwater reserves were 506 tmc ft, of which 237 tmc ft have been used. All that is left for use from now onwards is 269 tmc ft (thousand million cubic feet),” a senior government official said.
The problem is that the available groundwater needs to be conserved as there are no prospects for recharge in what is feared to be a rainfall deficit year, and the important aspect is that the available 269 tmc ft will not only have to sustain the state through the kharif season, but also during next year’s rabi as wll. Then there are the drinking water requirements that this same resource has to meet till the next year’s monsoon season takes hold and rain begins recharging the groundwater table, the official explained.
According to data from the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), groundwater extraction for agriculture rose from 235 tmc ft in 2019-20 to 256 tmc ft in 2022, and it was likely that the available groundwater this year may pose a crisis considering the fact that the government has already made it clear, also in the Contingency Plan for Vanakalam 2026, that the likelihood of any surface irrigation was next to nothing.
The Contingency Plan, the government document released on Thursday, said the groundwater levels were set to dip across the state, from the June average of 9.46 metres below ground level (MGBL) to 11.01 in August. The Contingency Plan’s groundwater level projections were based on an expected minimum of a 30 per cent overall rain deficiency till August.
With around 28 lakh agricultural borewells expected to be in action this Vanakalam, or Kharif crop season that has already been hit hard by the El Nino impacted monsoon, the projections of falling groundwater levels are only expected to add to the misery of farmers.
