But of even greater concern are the water conflicts between the states in India on every boundary that crosses a major flow of the Ganges. And also in the south of India, which is not in the Ganges River basin, people have been killed in riots about intrastate water conflicts. Mobs of desperate people must chase water delivery trucks twice a week to get their share. There is plenty of water during the monsoons. But this water is not stored properly and is mainly used for agriculture.
Many researchers believe that water is being used excessively in agriculture.
In the modern part of India's Punjab, so much water is being pumped from wells, the water table is going down by one and a half feet per year. Irrigated water in agriculture has had and continues to have negative environmental effects. This has become especially problematic over large areas of prime irrigated land in Pakistan and northern India. Declining growth in crop yields makes the prospect of decreasing the use of water on farms particularly scary. But surprisingly, researchers have found that if farmers decreased their water use on rice paddies, there would be little or no impact on yields.