Groundwater Markets structure and its evolution: a study of Karnal District, Haryana, India

In the north-western part of India, especially in Punjab and Haryana plains, the groundwater overdraft increases the cost of its withdrawal for irrigation and causes inequality in its access to farmers. As a result, groundwater markets are gradually emerging as pervasive agrarian institutions. In this research, the groundwater market structure has been studied in Haryana state and Karnal district has been chosen as the study area. For the survey, three villages are selected by the purposive sampling technique. The 300 households (100 households from each village) are selected by the simple random sampling technique. The primary data are collected by close-ended structured scheduled, interviews, and focus group discussions methods from the selected villages between the periods of May to September 2019. The study reveals that groundwater markets help to mitigate the increasing inequalities in groundwater access. The results show that almost 50% of the farming households have participated in the groundwater markets. There is a positive correlation (R-2 = 0.6176) between water selling and farm size and a negative correlation (R-2 = - 0.9828) between water buying and farm size. Groundwater scarcity, land fragmentation, and no tubewell on their own land have been observed as primary factors for the participation of farmers in groundwater markets. The most popular mode of water transactions is cash-based (hourly), which shows the mature stage of groundwater markets in the study area. Groundwater trade for irrigation is maximum under two crops, rice (45%) and wheat (46%), which significantly puts pressure on the groundwater resources. The study is suggested to change the cropping pattern and moving to two crops combination (rice and wheat) to crop diversification. A community-based approach is essential for efficient groundwater resource use in a water-scarce environment via effective institutional arrangements.