Groundwater in Punjab :: If there is a single prominent symbol for India’s resource-draining, energy-wasting, treasury-tilting farm policies, it is the electric water pump. Of Punjab’s 4.3 million hectares of cropland, 85 percent is irrigated with groundwater. Punjabi farmers have installed more than 1.2 million wells to irrigate their fields since the mid-1960s, and about 20,000 new wells are added annually. (Image © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue)