ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Based on socio-economic survey, well driller’s survey and secondary data, this paper investigates three perspectives of groundwater use, namely, the resource, the socio-economic and policy perspectives. The study region in Murshidabad district of West Bengal state is representative of the eastern Indo-Gangetic basin and is characterized by abundant groundwater at relatively shallow depths that gets adequate recharge due to high rainfall. While there is an abundant supply of groundwater, access to it is determined by capability to construct a tubewell or to buy water from other pump owners, government tubewells and tubewells operated by water users committees. All these options are available in the region and each has somewhat different implications for water buyers, who for the most part, are small and marginal farmers. Lack of electricity and rising cost of diesel are the two major impediments for further development of groundwater.
