Every month, most households sit with a notebook or phone to plan their expenses — school fees, rations, rent, EMIs — so that we don’t spend more than we earn. We treat money as limited and precious, something to be carefully budgeted.
Yet, when it comes to water, the one resource our lives and livelihoods depend on, we rarely pause to ask a simple question: how much do we actually have, and how much are we using in our village, city, block or district.
A new report on ‘water budgeting’ by NITI Aayog, an apex public policy think tank of the Government of India, shows a disturbing picture of how many regions of the country are drawing/consuming far more water than nature and local sources can reliably provide or replenish. It is silently pushing our communities into a future of water conflicts.
The NITI Aayog report titled Water Budgeting in Aspirational Blocks, which was released on November 19, 2025, highlights that many vulnerable blocks in India are already under serious water stress, with demand in several places approaching or exceeding locally available supply.
Worst Water Deficit
The most severe shortage was found in Namchi block in Sikkim, which showed a staggering 94 per cent water deficit. The block has 6,521.5 ha m water requirements for all purposes, out of which 95 per cent is for irrigation only. But, the block has only 416.5 ha m of supply from all sources. Thus, it is water deficit by 6,105.0 ha m (94 per cent).
Other blocks with major shortages include Gangiri block (60 per cent deficit) in Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh; Baldeogargh block (53 per cent deficit) in Tikamgarh district of Madhya Pradesh; and Andimadam block (42 per cent deficit) in Ariyalur district of Tamil Nadu.
There are blocks where underground water reserves and aquifers are severely depleted. Situation is critical in some blocks of Rajasthan such as Kotri in Bhilwara district and Abu Road in Sirohi district, which are classified as "over-exploited" because they are extracting more than 100 per cent of the annual extractable groundwater.
In Abu Road block, 74 per cent of the available water is used for irrigation; and 94 per cent of the total water used is from groundwater resources. According to the NITI Aayog report, its annual groundwater extractable figure is 2,653 hectare metre (ha m) but its actual annual groundwater extraction is 3,024 ha m, thus making it an ‘over exploited block’. Hectare metre (ha m) represents the volume of water covering one hectare of area to a depth of one metre.
In its scientific assessment, the NITI Aayog report covers 18 aspirational blocks spread across eight agro-climatic zones in 11 states of the country. An aspirational block is a block identified under the Indian government’s Aspirational Block Programme that focuses on improving governance to enhance the quality of life and service delivery in the country’s remotest and less developed blocks.
Overall, there are 500 aspirational blocks identified across 329 districts in 27 states and four Union Territories (UTs) in the country.
What is Water Budgeting
Water budgeting is a way of comparing how much water is available in an area with how much water people, farms, animals and local industries actually need, so that shortages and stress can be identified early and action can be planned (see section: Success Story From Drought-Prone Marathwada).
Water budgeting treats water like a financial budget: water “income” is rainfall, surface water, groundwater, transfers; and “expenditure” is domestic water use, livestock, agriculture, industry. By comparing income and expenditure, a block can be identified as water surplus or deficit.
According to the apex public policy think tank, water budgeting is not a one‑time paper exercise but a planning tool meant to be repeated, refined and used to guide schemes such as irrigation, drinking water projects, recharge measures and demand‑side management.
For the purpose of the report, NITI Aayog used a special online tool called the Varuni App to perform this complex accounting automatically. Varuni is a web application for water budgeting, which has been developed under an Into-German bilateral project, to build a user-friendly scientific methodology to prepare water budgets at block level.
Using Varuni App, the NITI Aayog report provides block-level water budget briefs for each of the 18 blocks, offering insights into their specific water demand-supply scenarios, challenges, and recommendations related to water resource management and facilitates, identifying suitable measures for enhancing water security in the block.
The report also presents a comparative analysis of the water budgets across the 18 aspirational blocks, namely Gangavaram block in Andhra Pradesh; Fatehpur in Bihar; Kukarmunda in Gujarat; Nirmand in Himachal Pradesh; Rupsho in Ladakh; Buxwaha, Vijaypur, Baldeogarh, and Chhaigaon Makhan blocks in Madhya Pradesh; Kotri, Bhim, and Abu Road in Rajasthan; Namchi in Sikkim, Andimadam in Tamil Nadu, Narva in Telangana; and three blocks in Uttar Pradesh — Gangiri, Nindaura, and Kotwali.
Broad Outcomes
Broadly, the NITI Aayog report categorises 18 blocks based on their geographical and climatic contexts — coastal, Gangetic plains, Himalayan, arid/semi-arid, and plateau regions. Each of these regions has their own unique water management concerns.
In the coastal regions, blocks like Gangavaram (Andhra Pradesh) and Andimadam (Tamil Nadu) are marked by low irrigation coverage and a high dependency on surface water due to salinity issues. These areas face risks of sea water intrusion and require improved water use efficiency and protection of groundwater quality.
In the Gangetic Plains, blocks like Gangiri and Kotwali face substantial water deficits and heavy reliance on groundwater, which places them in semi-critical categories.
Blocks in the Himalayan and cold desert regions depend on springs and glacial meltwater for irrigation. Namchi block in Sikkim is water deficit despite its spring-shed management programme Dhara Vikas, points out NITI Aayog report.
Baldeogarh block in Madhya Pradesh shows the highest deficit, needing catchment area treatments, surface storages and groundwater recharge strategies. Further, Kukarmunda block in Gujarat, despite having the Ukai dam with substantial surface water storage, heavily relies on groundwater (96 per cent).
According to NITI Aayog, these deficits highlight the urgent need for improved water management strategies tailored to each region’s specific context. Coastal blocks should focus on salinity management, Bundelkhand region on groundwater recharge and surface storage creation, and Himalayan areas on spring protection.
Success Story From Drought-Prone Marathwada
Water budgeting works excellently at village level as well, helping farmers plan and cultivate suitable crops for maximum benefits. This has been demonstrated by a group of villages in the drought-prone Marathwada region of Maharashtra.
Fourteen villages in Jalna district of Maharashtra, which share a common aquifer, have adopted water budgeting in both kharif and rabi crop cycles, to ensure crop cultivation is in tune with the amount of water available, both through rainfall and groundwater. Such budgeting also ensures equitable distribution of water and sustainable farming leading to higher returns to farmers. Borewells are not allowed and water-intensive crops like sugarcane are also banned. Farm ponds are used for irrigation purposes.
Before allocating water for crop-wise irrigation, 55 litres per person per day of water is set aside for each villager. Water is also allocated for cattle. Since 2014, soil and water conservation activities have also been taken up in these villages to catch rainwater and store runoff to replenish groundwater. These villages were once known for outmigration but today they offer farm work opportunities to people from other neighbouring districts.
Last year, I travelled to these villages in Jalna, saw the transformation first hand and also wrote about it in Down To Earth. And it all started from budgeting for their water resources.
To ensure transparency, villages like Kotha Jahangir use a wall to display their water budget, detailing available water and the season's crop selection to ensure transparency and community participation. Farmers cultivate crops that are appropriate for the amount of water budgeted for the season, such as switching from water-intensive cotton and maize to less demanding crops like soybean and toor in kharif, and chana and jowar in rabi.
In a joint effort, 14 villages in Jalna district have established committees to manage and resolve conflicts over their shared common aquifer, treating it as a community resource. This process has transformed villages from being dependent on water tankers to having water security, leading to increased crop yields and income.
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