New Delhi, Feb. 19 -- In just 10 years, India has become the second largest exporter of sugar from the fourth largest, but this dominance has come at a high cost: rapid groundwater depletion.

Sugar is extracted from sugarcane, a water-guzzling crop that adversely impacts India's groundwater sustainability. A deep-dive investigation by Mint, backed by interviews with multiple farmers, government officials, and experts, and data crunching from official sources, shows groundwater in Uttar Pradesh is at risk of complete depletion of aquifers within years unless a more sustainable way of producing sugarcane is adopted.

The unsustainable use of groundwater has already pushed major agrarian states like Punjab and Haryana beyond their ability t...