INVISIBLE EMPLOYER

Field and academic evidence shows sharp falls in casual agricultural employment at places where groundwater access declines

- SUSHANTA MAHAPATRA, PURNA CHANDRA PADHAN AND MADAN MEHER

HOW STRANGE—and alarming—to think that an invisible employer is vanishing beneath our feet. Groundwater, long treated as a private convenience, has quietly underpinned millions of days of casual farm work across India. As watertables fall, that “employer” is showing up less at the village gate: fewer transplanting seasons, shorter harvests and less demand for daily wage labour. The result is not only ecological stress but a mounting labour-market shock for the most precarious rural workers.

Start with the scale. The Central Ground Water Board's (CGWB'S) “Dynamic Ground Water Resources of India 2024” assessment reports India’s annual groundwater recharge at roughly 448.5 billion cubic metres (BCM), with an annual extractable resource of 407.8 BCM and estimated annual extraction of nearly 247.2 BCM. Those national aggregates can lull policymakers into complacency. The truth is local and sharp: in the CGWB'S 2023 block-level accounting, 736 of some 6,553 assessment units (about 11 per cent) were classified as “over-exploited”—extracting more water than recharges—with many more labelled “critical” or “semi-critical.”