It is a bit like the savings in our bank,” an official told me a week ago. “Should we be using it for our daily expenses?”He was talking about our groundwater recharge , which is a natural resource and is expected to be used only for drinking, maintaining livestock and daily requirements. As things stand today, nearly 93 per cent of the groundwater is used for irrigation.Every year, Maharashtra’s groundwater level goes down by two to 10 centimetres. Thirty-five per cent of the state’s watersheds are in the range of overexploited to semi-critical. To conquer the crisis of the fast depleting groundwater recharge, the Maharashtra government led by Devendra Fadnavis has often cited the Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan, which cost Rs 10,000 crore over a period of five years.However, the water conservation scheme has helped little, and it should not come as a surprise, considering the investment was always going to have little to no returns.Of the total annual replenishment of water in Maharashtra, only 4 per cent is due to the water conservation initiatives that we have taken across the state. And that is largely because 92 per cent of Maharashtra is made of hard rock, which can only absorb water to a certain extent. Its water carrying capacity is merely 1-3 per cent. For perspective, the number stands at about 20 per cent in the catchment of Ganges.Even if the state spends double the amount of what it is spending, the 4 per cent figure can probably be stretched to 6 per cent. The last I checked, we could not fight geology.The lawmakers are approaching the solution of the crisis from the wrong end. It would, instead, be prudent to look at the water usage on the demand side. Experts believe if enough farmers start using sprinklers and drip irrigation, it would reduce water usage by about 25-30 per cent. But the recurring investment to implement drip irrigation is anywhere between Rs 30,000-40,000 per acre. The state promises to subsidise 50 per cent of it, but the entire subsidy does not reach most of the farmers. Farmers in Maharashtra have committed suicides over a debt of Rs 1lakh. We cannot expect them to invest extra thousands in order to save water. Water conservation should be the responsibility of the state, not destitute farmers.About 23 per cent of Maharashtra’s cultivable area is irrigated. Canals cover 35 per cent of the irrigated land, while the rest is covered by groundwater. One way of conserving groundwater is to expand on the irrigated land covered by canals. However, it needs to be accompanied by crop regulation, for the canals often follow the plantation of sugarcane One of the important reasons behind accelerated groundwater extraction is sugarcane, which occupies 4-6 per cent of the cultivable area but uses 27 per cent of groundwater. 1per cent decrease in sugarcane can save nearly 5 per cent of the groundwater. Even if the state brings sugarcane under drip irrigation, it would go a long way in arresting Maharashtra’s water crisis. Ironically, Eknath Khadse , who was Maharashtra’s agriculture minister when Fadnavis first took oath as the chief minister in 2014, had told me on record that bringing sugarcane factories under drip irrigation is one of their objectives.But instead of enforcing methods to conserve groundwater, silly mistakes and lust for publicity is, in fact, leading to more wastage of water. The government had incentivised farm ponds that several farmers opted for. It was supposed to work as a drought-proofing measure. But the farm ponds are useful when you have excess water. They are counterproductive when filled up using groundwater. The surface area of a farm pond is wider, for they are rectangular in shape, and not too deep. With a wide surface area, it essentially becomes an evaporation chamber, leading to serious water losses. There is a reason why the wells have a narrow circumference.Almost every year, we stumble upon news reports where residents, particularly in rural Maharashtra, are travelling miles to fetch drinking water. On several occasions, the water they are consuming is unsafe and contaminated, leading to health issues. If the annual irrigation consumption of groundwater is brought down from 93 per cent to even 75 per cent through some of abovementioned solutions, it would solve the drinking water problem of around 15 crore people. According to the 2011census, the population of Maharashtra is 12 crores.