Author: Atul Bagai | Priyanka Verma
A stepwell in Patan. A stone barrage across the Kaveri still shaping irrigation nearly two millennia after it was built. These are reminders that India's water history is not only a history of structures, but also of systems for storing, sharing and maintaining water. India's contemporary water challenges are therefore not simply questions of supply and extraction. They are also questions of how water is stored, governed, maintained and shared.
India has about 18 per cent of the world's population but around 4 per cent of its freshwater resources. NITI Aayog's 2018 Composite Water Management Index warned of a potentially severe gap between demand and supply by 2030 if prevailing trends continued. More recent data from the Central Ground Water Board indicate some improvement: the proportion of assessed groundwater units classified as over-exploited declined from 17.24 per cent in 2017 to 11.13 per cent in 2024, while the share classified as safe increased from 62.6 to 73.4 per cent. Recharge from tanks, ponds and water-conservation structures also increased from 13.98 to 25.34 billion cubic metres. These figures point to the contribution that distributed water infrastructure can make to groundwater recharge.
"O Waters, You Are the Source of Vigour"
The reverence for water in Indian thought begins in verse. The Rigveda's Apah Suktam (RV 10.9.1) opens: apo hi stha mayobhuvas ta na urje dadhatana "O Waters, you are beneficent; grant us nourishment and strength." The following verse invokes the waters' auspicious essence "like loving mothers": usatir iva matarah. Water thus appears not merely as a physical resource but as a source of nourishment and well-being. Later Dharmashastra traditions prescribe against water pollution, reflecting the ethical and social obligations associated with its protection.
Water management in the Indian subcontinent has a much longer history, as demonstrated by the reservoirs and water-harvesting systems of the Harappan civilisation, particularly at Dholavira. A later example is Sringaverapura, near present-day Prayagraj, where excavations revealed tanks and a canal drawing floodwaters from the Ganga, with arrangements for sedimentation and storage before excess water returned to the river.
Although associated with Rama's crossing of the Ganga in the Ramayana tradition, the archaeological evidence independently demonstrates how floodwater could be captured and stored rather than treated merely as a hazard.
Today, this approach highlights the value of integrating flood management, rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge to strengthen water security.
Kautilya's Economics of Water
The Arthashastra, generally associated with Kautilya, links water management to public administration and economic incentives. It prescribes tax remissions on lands associated with new waterworks, repairs and improvements, while also assigning maintenance obligations and penalties for neglect. Its significance lies in the questions it raises about financing, responsibility and accountability across the life of an infrastructure asset.
Beyond construction, the Arthashastra assigns responsibilities to irrigation beneficiaries and regulates water distribution between waterworks, including higher and lower tanks. It thus links water management with benefits, obligations, maintenance and penalties. Rather than assuming uniform implementation, its significance lies in the administrative principles it articulates: who builds infrastructure, who benefits, who maintains it and who is accountable for neglect.
When Water Infrastructure Met Local Institutions
The Kaveri delta illustrates durability through adaptation. The Kallanai, or Grand Anicut, traditionally attributed to the Chola ruler Karikala and dated to the early centuries CE, continues to shape irrigation in the delta. Captain Caldwell repaired and reinforced it in 1804, followed by further improvements by Arthur Cotton, who drew on its foundations when designing irrigation works on the Godavari and Krishna rivers. Its history demonstrates the importance of maintaining and adapting existing infrastructure.
The Uttaramerur inscriptions of 919-921 CE offer an institutional example. They describe village committees, including an eri-variyam, or tank committee, responsible for maintaining irrigation tanks (eri). Members were selected through the kudavolai system from among qualified candidates. Although Uttaramerur was a Brahmadeya settlement with restrictive eligibility, the inscriptions specify selection procedures, tenure and disqualification, placing tank management within the village's administrative structure.
These examples show that durable water infrastructure requires not only sound engineering but also institutional continuity, local participation and sustained maintenance. It reveals four interconnected layers of water infrastructure: knowledge of rainfall, terrain and hydrology; physical systems designed to hold, move and recharge water; institutions given defined responsibilities; and incentives or obligations that make maintenance someone's responsibility rather than a general expectation.
What the Data Suggests Today: Lessons for Contemporary Water Security
The first lesson is that construction must be accompanied by maintenance. The Arthashastra's attention to incentives, obligations and penalties and the long history of Kallanai both demonstrate that infrastructure cannot be treated as a one-time investment. Contemporary water programmes therefore require clear responsibility for operation, maintenance, rehabilitation and accountability after construction.
The second lesson is that groundwater recharge and surface-water management should be understood as connected systems. Sringaverapura demonstrates how capture, sedimentation and storage could be integrated within a single hydraulic system. Contemporary planning can similarly connect tanks, ponds, recharge structures and catchments with groundwater management rather than treating them as isolated interventions.
The third lesson is that local institutions matter. The Uttaramerur example shows that irrigation infrastructure could be placed within a defined institutional structure. The Atal Bhujal Yojana offers a contemporary example of this institutional approach, combining community participation with local groundwater budgeting. Government assessments report improvement in groundwater levels in 180 of the programme's 229 blocks and approximately 81,700 water-conservation and recharge structures created or restored by March 2026.
The fourth lesson is that water security requires an ethical commitment to stewardship and protection, not merely technical access. Just as ancient ethical traditions treated water protection as a social obligation, it is important for modern policy to foster public duty around preventing pollution, conserving water and safeguarding catchments alongside infrastructure. The Jal Jeevan Mission has expanded rural household tap-water coverage from 16.7 per cent in 2019 to 81.71 per cent as of March 2026. Yet providing a connection is only one part of water security. Sustaining the source, preventing degradation and ensuring long-term operation and maintenance remain equally important.
Water security is not created by infrastructure alone. It emerges when knowledge, infrastructure, institutions and responsibility work together. The most useful lesson from India's hydraulic heritage, therefore, is not simply how earlier societies built water systems, but how they embedded those systems within social, administrative and ecological relationships. For a water-stressed future, the durability of a water system will depend not only on how well it is built, but on how well a society takes responsibility for keeping it alive.
Atul Bagai, Head of Country Office, India (UNEP); Former IAS Officer; Priyanka Verma, Junior Research Fellow, Bharat Ki Soch; Views presented are personal.