Atal Bhujal Yojana

Atal Bhujal Yojana promotes community-led groundwater management, in which local people help assess groundwater availability, plan its use and conserve it. It is a Central Sector Scheme that seeks to improve groundwater management through community participation, especially by reducing demand rather than relying only on measures to increase recharge.

Institutional framework and community ownership

The scheme is implemented by the Ministry of Jal Shakti with World Bank support. It combines institutional strengthening and capacity building with incentives for improved groundwater-management outcomes.

• It covers selected areas in seven states: Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
• Gram Panchayats provide the local platform for participatory planning, bringing communities into decisions about groundwater use and conservation.
• Training and awareness activities help communities understand aquifers, groundwater depletion and the relationship between water availability and local water use.

Groundwater assessment and village water security plans

The approach connects scientific information with local knowledge. Communities use information on groundwater conditions and water demand to prepare Water Security Plans, rather than treating individual recharge structures as a complete solution.

• Groundwater-level monitoring and public disclosure of groundwater information help make resource conditions visible to users.
• A water budget compares estimated water availability with demand, helping the village identify shortages and decide which interventions are necessary.
• Participatory plans identify both demand-management measures and suitable supply-side measures, such as rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge.
• Plans seek convergence with existing government programmes so that available public funds support locally identified water-security priorities.

Demand management and incentives for results

The central shift is from creating more water infrastructure alone to changing how groundwater is used. Demand-side management is essential because additional recharge may not arrest depletion if extraction continues to increase.

• Communities are encouraged to adopt water-efficient irrigation and agricultural practices suited to local water availability.
• Crop diversification towards less water-intensive crops can help reduce groundwater demand where local conditions permit.
• Performance-linked incentives reward states for results such as groundwater-data disclosure, participatory planning, convergence of funds, demand-management measures and improvements in groundwater levels.
• Community monitoring and shared planning encourage collective responsibility for groundwater, whose availability is affected by the combined extraction of many users.