Water Rights, Borewells and Irrigation on Farmland

Who Owns the Water Under Your Land

The traditional rule, linked to the Indian Easements Act, 1882, is that a landowner can take and use the water that lies under the surface of his own land, so long as it does not flow in a defined channel. In practice that meant that ownership of land brought the right to sink a well or borewell. Courts and legislatures have since qualified this. The Supreme Court has treated water as a public resource held under the public trust doctrine, and governments regulate extraction to protect aquifers. The result is a mixed position: your land gives you access to the water beneath it, but not an unlimited right to extract it.

This is why the rules differ by use. Ordinary agricultural and domestic use is lightly regulated, because governments rely on it for food and for rural livelihoods. Industrial, commercial and infrastructure use is regulated far more tightly, and large borewells for bottling, hospitality or resorts can attract permission requirements and charges. Because a farmhouse business could be viewed as commercial use, a plan that mixes farmland with a resort or events venue should be checked against the permission rules before you drill.

Surface water is different. Rivers, streams and canals belong to the state, and a landowner has rights to canal water only as allotted. Do not confuse the right to dig a borewell with any right to draw from a canal or a drain.

The Central Rules: CGWA and the 2020 Guidelines

At central level, the Central Ground Water Authority regulates groundwater extraction in notified areas and issues No Objection Certificates for non-exempt users. Its present guidelines were notified on 24 September 2020 through S.O. 3289(E) and amended on 29 March 2023 through S.O. 1509(E). The guidelines state plainly that the agriculture sector is exempted from obtaining a No Objection Certificate for groundwater extraction.

Other exempt categories include individual domestic consumers in rural and urban areas, rural drinking water supply schemes, armed forces establishments, micro and small enterprises drawing less than 10 cubic metres a day (who register rather than seek permission), and small domestic draws by industries and housing societies up to stated limits. The guidelines also provide an environmental compensation formula for extraction without a valid NOC, with a stated minimum of Rs 1,00,000, and tighter rules in over-exploited areas.

For a farmland buyer, the takeaway is practical. A borewell used for ordinary farming does not need a CGWA NOC. A borewell supplying a farmhouse resort, packaged water, a commercial greenhouse business with significant draw or an infrastructure project is a different case. If your plan goes beyond farming, ask a lawyer to check the central guidelines and the state authority before drilling, and check whether the block is classified as over-exploited, critical, semi-critical or safe.

State Laws That Matter in the Corridor

Haryana has the Haryana Water Resources (Conservation, Regulation and Management) Authority Act, 2020. The authority's own FAQ states that farming activities are exempt from the NOC requirement, that industries, infrastructure and mining projects using groundwater need permission, and that individual domestic consumers are exempt. Its crop diversification programme, Mera Pani Meri Virasat, shows how the state steers cultivation away from paddy in water-stressed blocks.

Uttar Pradesh has the Uttar Pradesh Ground Water (Management and Regulation) Act, 2019, which requires commercial, industrial, infrastructure and bulk users to obtain registration or authorisation. It exempts domestic and agricultural users from its penal provisions, and manual extraction methods such as hand pumps are outside registration. The state's regulatory authority sits under Section 7 of the Act. If your land is near Noida, Greater Noida or other fast-growing areas, check the notified status of the area, as groundwater levels there are under pressure.

Punjab regulates the cropping calendar rather than the borewell. The Punjab Preservation of Subsoil Water Act, 2009 prohibits sowing paddy nurseries before 10 May, or another notified date, and transplanting before dates fixed by the government. Authorised officers can order destruction of nurseries sown early, and penalties apply, which the Act recovers as arrears of land revenue; the penalty amount and dates have been revised, so use the current notification.

Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh have their own groundwater and water-use regimes, which we have not confirmed here. Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand also rely on spring and gravity-fed sources that are often shared by hamlets, and Rajasthan has areas with very deep water tables. Ask the state groundwater department and the local revenue office for the current rule on borewell permission, depth and registration of drilling rigs.

Canals, Shared Borewells and Neighbours

In canal-irrigated parts of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and western Uttar Pradesh, water is delivered by a rotational schedule, known as warabandi (वारबंदी), through outlets that serve a group of fields. Rights to a turn at the outlet are recorded in the irrigation department's register and are governed by canal and drainage laws, such as the Northern India Canal and Drainage Act, 1873 and its state successors. A buyer should confirm that the plot is actually served by the outlet it is said to use, and that water charges are paid up.

Shared borewells are common, particularly in small holdings. A shared well works well in a good year and badly in a dry one. If a borewell sits on a neighbour's plot and serves yours, or the reverse, the understanding is often informal, and informal arrangements about land rights are weak. Where an easement or shared right is intended to last, have it recorded in writing with the right to lay a pipe and enter the neighbouring land for repairs, and consider registering it, as the rules in our Registration Act 1908 guide explain for documents that create interests in land.

Pipelines and power connections matter as much as the well. A borewell on one side of a boundary with a pipe running through a neighbour's field is a dispute waiting to happen, as discussed in boundary disputes and encroachment. Check that the electricity connection for the tubewell is in the seller's name and transfers properly, and check whether subsidised agricultural tariffs apply.

What to Check Before You Buy

Ask for evidence rather than assurances. Request the borewell's depth, date of drilling, pump rating, and any installation or electricity papers. Visit in the dry season and run the pump. Speak to neighbours about the water table and about wells that dried up. Look at the block's classification on the state or central groundwater assessment, which rates blocks as safe, semi-critical, critical or over-exploited.

Check what the revenue record says about irrigation. Land recorded as irrigated or as served by a particular source can be priced differently from unirrigated land. Confirm that there are no pending disputes about the water source, and that the borewell sits within the boundary of the plot you are buying, using the map and demarcation steps in land demarcation.

Finally, plan for the future. Government schemes encourage solar pumps and micro-irrigation, but eligibility and subsidy levels change, so check with the state agriculture department. If the water depends on a single borewell, budget for deepening or replacing it, and treat water risk as a reason to adjust price or walk away, not as an afterthought. Our guide to how to verify land title covers the document side of the same exercise.

Frequently Asked Questions