Deeper groundwater levels portrays different Punjab despite fewer over-exploited blocks

The Punjab government’s latest groundwater assessment has put the number of over-exploited groundwater blocks at 110 out of 153, down from 115 in the previous assessment. The Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) assessment of 2025 also recorded an improvement, putting the number of over-exploited units at 111, compared with 117 in the 2022 assessment.

However, groundwater levels at some monitoring locations have deteriorated despite the lower number of over-exploited blocks. According to the CGWB, post-monsoon groundwater-level data from 2022 to 2025 show that the number of monitored wells with groundwater at 20 metres or deeper has fluctuated and, by 2025, was lower than in 2022.

Yet the share of wells where the water level was more than 40 metres below ground level rose to 9 per cent in 2025 — the highest in the period. The classification of a block as over-exploited is based on groundwater extraction in relation to the annual extractable groundwater resource.

The water-level data, meanwhile, records the depth of groundwater below the ground surface at individual observation wells. Taken together, the figures show a modest improvement in the state's groundwater-extraction balance, even as very deep groundwater levels persist at some monitoring locations.

The CGWB’s groundwater assessment shows that out of Punjab’s 153 assessment units, 117 were classified as over-exploited in 2022. The state’s Ground Water-2024 report records 115 over-exploited units in the 2023 and 2024 assessments.

The Centre’s 2025 assessment put the number at 111. The 2025 assessment also estimated Punjab’s annual groundwater recharge at 18.60 billion cubic metres (BCM) and its annual extractable groundwater resource at 16.80 BCM.

Against this, annual groundwater extraction was estimated at 26.27 BCM, resulting in a groundwater extraction stage of 156.36 per cent. The state government’s 2026 assessment has now put the number of over-exploited assessment units at 110.

It estimates annual groundwater extraction at 26.32 BCM, against an annual extractable groundwater resource of 17.29 BCM, taking the stage of groundwater extraction to 152.22 per cent. However, experts from the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, said the decline in the number of over-exploited blocks should not be interpreted as groundwater recovery across the state.

The deeper groundwater levels in the post-monsoon groundwater-level data provide a different picture. (see graph) In 2022, 34.5 per cent of the monitored wells had groundwater levels at 20 metres or deeper, while 7.3 per cent were deeper than 40 metres.

In 2023, the 20-metre-plus share increased to 35.3 per cent, while the proportion of wells beyond 40 metres was 6.7 per cent. In 2024, the share at 20 metres or deeper fell to around 33 per cent, while the >40-metre category remained around 6.8 per cent.

In 2025, the share of wells at 20 metres or deeper fell further to 32.2 per cent. But the share of wells with groundwater more than 40 metres below ground level increased to 9 per cent. In the 2025 post-monsoon monitoring, this represented 24 of 267 observation wells.

The 9 per cent figure (24 wells) needs to be understood correctly. It does not mean that 9 per cent of Punjab’s agricultural tubewells are more than 40 metres deep. It refers to the depth of the groundwater level below ground level at monitored observation wells.

Therefore, the 2025 figure represents the distribution of groundwater levels across the 267 wells monitored for the assessment.