A sugar-coated catastrophe: Groundwater crisis in Uttar Pradesh

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. In just 10 years, India has become the second largest exporter of sugar from the fourth largest, but this dominance has come at a high cost: rapid groundwater depletion. Sugar is extracted from sugarcane, a water-guzzling crop that adversely impacts India’s groundwater sustainability.

A deep-dive investigation by Mint, backed by interviews with multiple farmers, government officials, and experts, and data crunching from official sources, shows groundwater in Uttar Pradesh is at risk of complete depletion of aquifers within years unless a more sustainable way of producing sugarcane is adopted. The unsustainable use of groundwater has already pushed major agrarian states like Punjab and Haryana beyond their ability to naturally replenish the water. Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are on track to follow suit.

Both leaders in sugarcane production have utilised over 70% of their available groundwater resources, which is deemed as a “semi-critical" level by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB). Seven of India’s top 10 sugarcane-producing districts—in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka—lie in this category. Despite the groundwater crisis, Uttar Pradesh alone has accounted for half of India’s sugar production over the last decade.

In the decade to 2023, farmers in Uttar Pradesh extracted over three-fifths of its available groundwater. By 2023, over three out of every 10 blocks in the state had either used up all their groundwater or were at risk of depletion. While Uttar Pradesh’s groundwater recharge capacity remained unchanged, sugarcane production surged 70% in this period to 240 million tonnes in 2023, far above the national average of 40% growth.