Governing the Ungovernable: Mapping the Development of Groundwater Irrigation and Groundwater Policies in India

ABSTRACT Groundwater governance is complex due to several externalities associated with groundwater being an invisible natural resource tied to the land with millions of extractors and limited means of exclusion. The paper traces the evolution of groundwater irrigation in India and the corresponding change in groundwater laws and policies to address overextraction and distributive justice issues since the 1970s. The study adopts a mixed‐methods approach, coupling secondary data analysis with an analytical review of empirical studies across different states of India to assess if these policies have been able to address the basic rationale for allocating groundwater by the principle of “equitable and reasonable utilization.” The study offers a conceptual toolkit for effective groundwater governance. The findings show that the attempts to regulate, control, and manage groundwater use in agriculture with Groundwater legislation since the 1970s remain spatially “intermittent,” characterized by “licensing type control” on paper and “rent seeking and corrupted” in its implementation. Groundwater management implementation also lacks political will due to the diverse interests of stakeholders, and if implemented, it is sometimes not based on science and data. The success of groundwater governance remains contingent on cooperation and coproduction between three components: Evidence‐based laws and regulations, voluntary stakeholder participation, and the political will of the state to enact regulations. At present, path dependencies between irrigation, agriculture, and electricity policy restrict future policy reimaginations, but in the long run, demand‐side management is needed for phasing down groundwater extraction.