Recharge Punjab's aquifers with India's share of Indus waters

Hindustan Times

21-05-2025

In the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, India decided to put the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance. Transboundary water-sharing agreements are vital to maintaining harmonious international relations in the long run. India also shares water with Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and China. We need to prioritise full usage within treaties before we reject any.
Under the Indus Water Treaty, India has the right to use all of the water of the three eastern rivers — Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej — while Pakistan has the right to use most of the three western rivers, Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab.
Officials of the Jal Shakti ministry have stated that not a drop of India's share of water under the treaty would be allowed to flow into Pakistan. Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has said the suspension of IWT will prove to be 'a blessing for our agriculture in states such as Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir'.
But India is yet to develop the infrastructure needed to stop the water from flowing downstream to Pakistan and has not yet fully utilised its water rights. The government plans to deploy short-, medium-, and long-term measures to implement its current stance. In the short term, it is considering de-silting reservoirs to increase capacity. In the medium and long term, India may expedite the completion of ongoing projects like Shahpurkandi and Ujh, or consider constructing new dams.
While these steps are helpful, they face significant challenges, including technical, environmental, and political constraints. Therefore, it is crucial that India broadens its thinking and looks for more innovative measures to safeguard its water rights.
One such measure that is under-represented in the public discourse is the utilisation of the vast underground aquifer space in Punjab. These aquifers, severely depleted over the past decades, have the ability to store vast quantities of water. The understanding of Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) techniques has improved significantly over the past few decades, and it can help strengthen our water security and implement the government's priorities.
India has one major dam on each of the three eastern rivers of the Indus system: Bhakra on Sutlej, Pong on Beas, and Ranjit Sagar on Ravi. These are at locations where these great rivers cross the Lower Himalayan range. These locations present perfect narrow valleys where we can use the mountains to impound large quantities of water to have deep reservoirs. But these three locations have already been utilised.
As per the Bhakra Beas Management Board, India is currently unable to use 2.5 billion cubic metres (BCM) of the water from the three eastern rivers. During monsoons, the peak flows are so high that much of the water is let out to Pakistan. Additionally, annual rainfall in northwestern India is expected to increase with the climate crisis. There is a clear need to augment the storage capacity if India wants to utilise its entitlements and tap surplus monsoon waters.
Meanwhile, Punjab's groundwater situation paints a worrying picture. Central Groundwater Board (CGWB) estimates that the state is extracting 165% more water than its natural recharge. Groundwater levels are declining by more than one metre per year in some areas. While the aquifers in Punjab are quite deep, much of the deeper groundwater is saline, and the thickness of the freshwater at the top is decreasing. If current practices persist, extensive areas could become saline in the next few decades.
Worse, the falling groundwater levels in central and southern Punjab, could invert the direction of sub-surface flows of groundwater in the coming decades. There is a high risk that saline groundwater from south-western Punjab will migrate into central Punjab and contaminate aquifers that still support fertile agriculture. CGWB has estimated that Punjab has approximately 50 billion cubic metres of aquifer space available for recharge. In theory, 20 years' worth of excess water of the three eastern rivers can be channeled into the aquifers of Punjab.
Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) refers to the intentional recharge of water into aquifers using human-made systems to enhance the natural replenishment of groundwater. India has traditionally been doing watershed management in its own way, but for something like the diversion of Indus waters, it needs to do much more.
There is growing evidence of successfully managed aquifer recharge around the world. Tucson, Arizona, in the US has a case similar to Punjab. Tucson has an alluvial aquifer in a semi-arid region and was facing groundwater decline after the advent of borewells around the 1950s. However, it started to receive water from the Colorado River in the 1990s and chose to replenish its aquifers, via carefully managed recharge projects. Tucson's groundwater levels have since stabilised and begun to recover, offering a critical buffer against future water insecurity.
Underground Transfer of Floods for Irrigation (UTFI) is a type of MAR that has been successfully tested in Uttar Pradesh by the International Water Management Institute. It essentially involves three steps. One, the identification of areas with good aquifer storage, high recharge capacity soils, proximity to canal systems, and good water quality. Two, the construction of small ponds equipped with recharge wells with appropriate filtration systems. Three, the diversion of peak flood waters during the monsoon.
This decentralised and cost-effective technique can be scaled across the central Punjab belt. A few hundred strategically placed UTFI systems could significantly augment groundwater storage at a regional scale.
We should use India's share of Indus waters to address our challenges even as we hold the IWT in abeyance. Managed aquifer recharge in Punjab can be the start.
Vivek Singh Grewal is a hydrogeologist and managing partner at WELL Labs, a not-for-profit water systems research and innovation centre. The views expressed are personal