Fifty years ago, drilling a borewell was seen as progress. Today, millions of Indians face the opposite problem—their borewells are running dry.
This is the story of how India went from traditional water systems to depending entirely on groundwater, and why that approach is now failing.
Life Before Borewells in India: Traditional Water Practices
Before the 1960s, Indian villages and towns managed water very differently.
Communities built stepwells, tanks, and ponds that captured rainwater during monsoons. These structures stored water for the dry months ahead. Farmers used open wells, typically 20 to 40 feet deep, that drew from shallow groundwater layers.
Water management was a community effort. Villages maintained their tanks and ponds together. During droughts, everyone shared the available water. The system had limits, but it was sustainable because it worked with natural recharge cycles.
Traditional methods had one major advantage: they captured and stored rainwater locally. When monsoons came, the water stayed in the area instead of running off into rivers and eventually the sea.
The Green Revolution and the First Borewells
Everything changed in the 1960s with the Green Revolution.
The Indian government wanted to increase food production and reduce dependence on imported wheat and rice. The solution was high-yield crop varieties that needed reliable irrigation throughout the year.
Surface water from canals and rivers wasn’t enough. Farmers needed a water source they could control. That’s when borewell drilling technology came to India from western countries.
The first borewells were drilled in Punjab and Haryana around 1965-1970. These wells went 100 to 200 feet deep, much deeper than traditional open wells. Submersible pumps could pull water up from depths that were impossible to reach before.
The results seemed like a miracle. Farmers could irrigate their fields even in summer. Crop yields doubled and tripled. India moved toward food self-sufficiency.
The government encouraged borewell drilling by providing subsidies for pumps and electricity. Banks gave loans specifically for agricultural borewells. By the 1980s, drilling a borewell became standard practice across India.
The Rapid Spread Across India
What started in Punjab and Haryana quickly spread to every state.
1970s to 1980s: Borewells became common in agricultural areas. States like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, and Rajasthan saw rapid adoption. Farmers with borewells had a clear advantage—they could grow multiple crops per year while others depended on rainfall.
1990s: Cities started drilling borewells on a large scale. As urban populations grew and municipal water supply couldn’t keep up, apartment complexes, hospitals, hotels, and industries installed their own borewells. In Bangalore alone, the number of borewells went from a few thousand in 1990 to over 4 lakh (400,000) by 2000.
2000s: Even individual homes started drilling borewells. Municipal water supply was unreliable in most cities. Having your own borewell meant water security. The drilling industry boomed. Small towns that never had water problems suddenly had dozens of drilling rigs operating.
By 2010, India had an estimated 2 to 3 crore (20 to 30 million) borewells. No other country had extracted groundwater on this scale.
When Things Started Going Wrong
The problems appeared gradually, then suddenly.
Borewells started failing in the early 2000s. Farmers who drilled 100-foot borewells in the 1980s found them going dry. They drilled deeper—200 feet, then 300 feet. In some areas of Rajasthan and Karnataka, borewells now go 500 to 800 feet deep.
The water table kept dropping. In Delhi, the groundwater level fell by 10 meters between 1995 and 2005. In Bangalore, the decline was even faster—some areas saw a 15-meter drop in just 10 years. Punjab, which led the borewell revolution, now has over 1 lakh (100,000) failed borewells.
Water quality deteriorated. As borewells went deeper, they started pulling water with high TDS (Total Dissolved Solids), excess fluoride, and other minerals. The water tasted bad and caused health problems. Deeper water also meant higher electricity costs for pumping.
The vicious cycle began. When one borewell failed, people drilled another one nearby, often going even deeper. This pulled more water from the same shrinking aquifer. Neighbors competed to drill the deepest borewell. The water table dropped faster.
Why Borewells Are Failing
The problem is simple: we’re taking out more water than nature can put back.
India receives 4,000 billion cubic meters of rainfall every year. But according to the Central Water Commission, we harvest only 8% of this rainwater. The rest flows away into rivers, drains, and the sea.
Meanwhile, we extract 260 billion cubic meters of groundwater annually. That’s 25% of all groundwater extracted globally. India uses more groundwater than China and the USA combined.
The math doesn’t work. We’re taking out water much faster than rain can refill the aquifers. In most Indian cities, the recharge rate is barely 10-15% of the extraction rate.
Concrete makes it worse. As cities expand, roads, buildings, and parking lots cover the ground. Rainwater that used to seep into the soil now runs off into storm drains. Even heavy monsoons don’t recharge the groundwater effectively.
Climate change adds pressure. Rainfall patterns are becoming more unpredictable. Some areas get too much rain in a short time (causing floods), while others face longer dry periods. This makes natural recharge even less reliable.
The Current Water Crisis
Today’s situation is alarming.
According to NITI Aayog, 21 major Indian cities, including Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, and Hyderabad—are expected to reach zero groundwater levels soon. Around 60 crore (600 million) people already face water shortages for at least one month every year.
In 2019, Chennai’s reservoirs went completely dry. The city depended entirely on water tankers for months. In 2018, Cape Town in South Africa nearly became the world’s first major city to run out of water. Indian cities are heading in the same direction.
Rural areas face different problems. Thousands of villages have been abandoned because borewells failed and there’s no alternative water source. Farmers who invested lakhs of rupees in drilling now have dry holes in their fields.
The financial burden is huge. Drilling a new borewell costs ₹30,000 to ₹1,00,000 depending on depth and location. Many borewells fail within 5 to 10 years. Running submersible pumps from great depths costs ₹5,000 to ₹15,000 per month in electricity alone.
What Went Wrong
Borewells weren’t the problem. Uncontrolled extraction without recharge was the problem.
Traditional water systems had natural limits. You couldn’t pump more water than your well could provide. This forced communities to use water carefully and maintain recharge systems.
Borewells removed these limits. With powerful pumps and cheap electricity (often free for farmers), there was no immediate cost to overuse. The consequences appeared years later, by which time extraction had become unsustainable.
We forgot a basic principle: groundwater is not unlimited. It’s a renewable resource only if we let it renew. Like a bank account, you can’t keep withdrawing without deposits.
Government policies encouraged extraction but not recharge. Subsidies went to buying pumps and drilling deeper, not to building recharge systems. Water was treated as free, so there was no incentive to conserve it.
The Solution: Recharge More Than We Extract
The answer isn’t to stop using borewells. That’s unrealistic. The solution is to balance extraction with recharge.
Every roof is a water source. A typical 1500 square feet roof in an area with 800 mm annual rainfall can collect about 1,00,800 liters of water. Instead of letting this water flow into drains, we can send it back into the ground.
Rainwater harvesting works. Tamil Nadu made rooftop rainwater harvesting mandatory in 2003. Cities like Chennai that adopted it seriously saw their groundwater levels stabilize and even recover in some areas.
The technology is simple. You need a filter to remove dust and leaves from rooftop water, and a connection to recharge your borewell or a recharge pit. No electricity is required. Maintenance is minimal—just clean the filter once or twice a year.
The math becomes favorable. If your family uses 1,97,100 liters of water annually and your roof collects 1,00,800 litres, you’re recharging some amount of water and you will have to pump out lesser quantity of groundwater. This not only sustains your borewell but helps raise the overall water table in your area.
Over 10,000 homes across India have installed systems from companies like NeeRain since 2020. They’ve collectively recharged more than 150 billion liters of rainwater. Customer feedback shows that borewells which were declining or had quality issues improved significantly within 18 to 24 months of regular rainwater recharging.
What Individual Action Can Achieve
People often think water problems are too big for individuals to solve. That’s not true.
When thousands of homes in a neighborhood recharge rainwater, the cumulative effect is significant. The groundwater table in that area stops falling. Eventually, it starts rising. Borewells that were failing start yielding more water. Water quality improves as fresh rainwater dilutes the mineral-heavy deeper groundwater.
This isn’t theory. Areas in Tamil Nadu and parts of Karnataka that embraced rainwater harvesting over the past 15 years have reversed groundwater depletion. Their borewells are more productive now than they were 10 years ago.
The cost is reasonable. Setting up a basic rainwater harvesting system costs ₹5,000 to ₹15,000 for most homes. Compare this to drilling a new borewell (₹30,000 to ₹1,00,000) or depending on water tankers (₹15,000 to ₹40,000 per year). The investment pays for itself within a year through reduced tanker costs and lower electricity bills.
From Crisis to Opportunity
India’s borewell story doesn’t have to end in crisis.
We have the knowledge, technology, and resources to fix this. The question is whether we’ll act before the situation becomes irreversible.
Every monsoon is an opportunity. Millions of liters of fresh water fall on our roofs, roads, and open spaces. We can capture it, filter it, and send it back into the ground. Each household that does this contributes to the solution.
The borewell revolution gave India food security and lifted millions out of poverty. Now we need a recharge revolution to ensure those borewells continue to provide water for future generations.
The choice is clear: We can keep drilling deeper until there’s nothing left, or we can start putting water back into the ground.
For more information on how to recharge your borewell and improve groundwater levels in your area, visit NeeRain’s website. Learn about simple rainwater harvesting systems that thousands of Indian homes are already using to secure their water future.
