Groundwater is the major source of drinking water in rural India. Uncontrolled extraction without commensurate recharge and leaching of pollutants from pesticides and fertilizers into the aquifers has resulted in pollution of groundwater. Leaching from the pesticide and fertilizer dependent agriculture, industrial waste and the municipal solid waste has contaminated our groundwater.

The ecological untenability of our industrial model of development and chemicals induced agriculture is really poisoning the underground water.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) survey of 22 major industrial zones found that groundwater in each of them was unfit for drinking. High levels of chemical-use and waste generation in recent decades are slowly poisoning supplies of groundwater - the major source of our freshwater needs. Worldwide, Ninety seven percent of the planet's freshwater is stored in aquifers. One of the major factors in such contamination is that in most places people have learned to dispose of waste under the earth’s surface unmindful of the fact that earth is a closed ecological system where what goes down comes up sooner rather than later.

Unlike rivers, the pollution in aquifers is generally irreversible. The rate of ground-water renewal is very slow in comparison with that of surface water. While it is true that some aquifers recharge fairly quickly, the average recycling time for groundwater is estimated at 1,400 years, as opposed to only 20 days for river water. Water in aquifers moves through the earth with glacial slowness, its pollutants continue to accumulate.

Today, aquifers supply water to more than half of India's irrigated land. Our growing reliance on groundwater is inviting a disaster. Of the 105 million hectare- metres (mham) use projected for 2025, some 70 mham is expected to come from surface water and about 35 mham from groundwater. This almost exclusive reliance groundwater is already leading to a number of problems. Government has endangered these problems and aggravating factors are becoming more aggravated. The growing demand for water has led to an acute crisis even as pollution is reducing the availability of clean water.