We will nurture ground water recharge harnessing rain water to reduce dependence on ground water… Introduce and promote low water consuming irrigation techniques and optimum utilization of water resources… Examination of ground water to eliminate toxic chemicals, particularly arsenic and fluorides.

Three lines in the 2014 manifesto's water and agriculture sections make commitments that can be tested against a single audit. One: "We will nurture ground water recharge harnessing rain water to reduce dependence on ground water." Two: "Introduce and promote low water consuming irrigation techniques and optimum utilization of water resources." Three: "Examination of ground water to eliminate toxic chemicals, particularly arsenic and fluorides."

Ground water is not a side issue in Indian water policy — the audit records that it supplies "nearly 62 per cent of the total requirement of water in irrigation, 85 per cent in rural water supply and 45 per cent in urban water supply." The CAG's performance audit of how it is managed and regulated was tabled on 21 December 2021 and covers the period through March 2020.

On the first promise, the direction of travel is the answer. "During the period 2004 to 2017, the stage of extraction of ground water has increased from 58 to 63 per cent" — and over the same period "the percentage of safe blocks has decreased while the percentage of blocks categorised as semi-critical, critical and over-exploited has steadily increased." Dependence went up.

In four places it went past the limit entirely. "Four States/UTs (Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan) had a stage of extraction of more than 100 per cent, indicating that extraction of ground water has surpassed the recharge of ground water." At district level, 267 districts across 24 states were above the national rate, ranging up to 385 per cent. The wells themselves confirm it: of 14,387 observation wells compared against the previous decade's post-monsoon mean, "9,260 (about 64 per cent) wells showed decline in water level."

Part of the reason the picture is that coarse is that the country is barely watching. Against 50,000 observation wells proposed by the end of 2012-17, "a network of only 15,851 observation wells were being monitored as of 31 March 2019", and the real-time monitoring system with digital water level recorders was "still being planned as of March 2020". The two-yearly national assessment was skipped in 2015, leaving a four-year gap. Aquifer mapping — the exercise that tells a district where its water actually is — had covered 13 lakh of 24.8 lakh sq km by September 2020, with reports finalised for 6.5 lakh, and no web system was ever built to share them.

On the third promise, examination for toxic chemicals, the testing happened and the results were bad. At 15,165 locations across 32 states, ground water exceeded permissible limits for "Arsenic (697 locations), Fluoride (637 locations), Nitrate (2,015 locations), Iron (1,389 locations) and Salinity (587 locations)". Examination is a means, not an end; the promise said eliminate.

Regulation, which is the tool that would slow extraction, was largely inert. Of 328 sampled projects whose operating consent required a ground water no-objection certificate, "253 projects (77 per cent) were operating without NOCs". Of 3,189 packaged drinking water units licensed since 2013, 2,475 had no certificate. On 31 March 2019 there were 10,758 applications pending — "three times more than the fresh NOCs issued during last six years". Where certificates lapsed and nobody reapplied, in 474 cases, the authority "did not take any action under section 15 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986", so those projects kept pumping. And against violations that the audit calls widespread, the authority issued "show cause notices to only 99 project proponents" over five years. Field visits found illegal extraction in Andhra Pradesh, missing flow meters in Gujarat, Odisha and West Bengal, and water being wasted in a notified over-exploited area in Karnataka.

The money tells the same story as the enforcement. Against a budget estimate of ₹2,349.48 crore for 2012-19, actual expenditure on the ground water scheme was ₹1,109.73 crore. And the component aimed precisely at the manifesto's promise — Participatory Ground Water Management, ₹575.38 crore for 2013-17 — saw "no expenditure incurred" and was then dropped. Its successor, Atal Bhujal Yojana, runs in selected locations in seven states, and the audit is explicit that "both in scale and size, the ABHY is not a replacement for PGWM which was dropped."

The promise was to reduce dependence on ground water. On the audited record, extraction rose, safe blocks shrank, two-thirds of monitored wells fell, the permit system went largely unenforced, and the one scheme component designed to do what the manifesto described was never spent. Our verdict is not supported.