Punjab has roughly fourteen lakh tubewells. Electricity for agricultural pumping has been free since 1997. Paddy, which needs standing water, is grown across about thirty lakh hectares in a state whose rainfall does not support it.
The Central Ground Water Board classes the large majority of Punjab's assessment blocks as over-exploited, meaning extraction exceeds recharge. Water tables in central Punjab have fallen by tens of metres since the 1970s and continue to fall by around half a metre to a metre a year in the worst districts.
Submersible pumps have been going deeper for decades. The cost of deepening a well is borne by the farmer and is a component of rural debt.
The Preservation of Subsoil Water Act of 2009 pushed paddy transplanting later in the season, into the monsoon, which slowed the decline and shortened the gap between harvest and wheat sowing, which is why stubble is burnt rather than removed.
Every technical assessment of Punjab's agriculture for thirty years has said the same thing about water. The policy that would change it, procurement of crops other than paddy, sits with the central government.
Most of Punjab's blocks are classified as overexploited, meaning more is drawn each year than is recharged, and the shallow aquifer under much of the central belt is effectively finished.
The pumps have moved to the deeper aquifer, which needs a submersible and a bigger investment, and which is not recharging on any human timescale.
The satellite gravity measurements show this plain as one of the fastest depleting aquifer systems on earth. It is the single most important fact about Punjab's future and it is not disputed by anybody.