467 Groundwater Conservation Baldev Singh Dhillon and Raj Kumar PUNJAB is facing an alarming situation with respect to groundwater resources. In the report, Groundwater Resources of Punjab — as on March 31, 2017, prepared by the Central Ground Water Board and Water Resources & Environment Directorate of Punjab, it is highlighted in red, “If the present rate of extraction continues, the available groundwater resources may exhaust in 20 to 25 years.” India faced severe food shortage during the 1950s and 1960s. In the second half of the 1960s, high-yielding varieties of wheat and paddy and their complementary production-protection technology packages became available. The government formulated a landmark policy of fixing the MSP and procurement of the produce, and took many other initiatives for national food security. These developments gave an impetus to paddy cultivation in Punjab. From 1965-66 to 2019-20, the area under paddy increased 10.7 times (2.93 to 31.41 lakh hectares) and the production 43.1 times (4.39 to 189.12 lakh tonnes) in Punjab. During the same period, the number of tubewells increased from 26,000 to 14.76 lakh and the cropping intensity from 129% to 190% as a result of intensive agriculture. With these developments, Punjab became the food bowl of the country and helped the nation to not only become food-secure but also an exporter. This was, however, accompanied by some challenges of which depletion of groundwater resources is the most serious one.