Six Months, 13 Feet, and a Lesson No Budget Can Teach: Santosh Jadhav's Well-Deepening Ordeal
Sangli farmer and Indian Farmer co-founder Santosh Jadhav set out to deepen a well by 20 feet. Four months of water, blasting, and broken momentum later, he settled for 13 — and a hard-won education in the true cost of farm decisions.
Information courtesy
Santosh Jadhav · Chief Farmer & Co-founder, Indian Farmer
A farmer from Sangli, Maharashtra, and co-founder of the Indian Farmer platform, who chronicled the hidden time and mental cost of deepening his farm well.
The short answer
Santosh Jadhav, a farmer from Sangli, Maharashtra, and co-founder of Indian Farmer, began deepening an existing 40-foot well in December 2024, aiming to add 20 feet. Persistent underground springs, repeated flooding from nearby canal seepage, and the approach of the monsoon forced him to halt after nearly six months with only 13 feet gained. The experience, he says, exposed a cost that no project budget accounts for — the toll of time, constant management, unexpected obstacles, and mental pressure.
The decision
A Simple Plan, a Familiar Promise
Water anxiety is a quiet but persistent force on dryland and semi-arid farms across Maharashtra. For Santosh Jadhav — farmer, and co-founder of the Indian Farmer platform — that anxiety reached a tipping point in late 2024. His farm's existing well stood 40 feet deep, and he decided it needed to go deeper.
The plan looked clean on paper. Engage a contractor, excavate an additional 20 feet, and secure a more reliable water supply ahead of the next crop season. A budget was drawn up. Work commenced in December.
What followed was anything but clean.
The well, already holding a substantial volume of water, had to be pumped out before drilling could begin — a process that consumed several days on its own. And each time the water level fell far enough to allow progress, underground springs quietly refilled it. The project had barely begun, and the first of many cycles had already started.
The grind
Rock, Water, and a Cycle That Would Not Break
Rock blasting eventually got underway, and for a brief period, momentum built. Then water broke through into a nearby canal. The well flooded again. Work stopped.
The pattern repeated itself with numbing regularity:
- Pump out the water
- Resume drilling
- Water releases into the canal
- Well refills
- Halt operations
December gave way to January, then February, then March. The farm took on the character of a construction site — rocks piled at the rim, pipelines snaking across the yard, pumps running at odd hours. Water was diverted into a second well when possible, and into a nearby stream when not. Each workaround added expense and absorbed more time.
Through it all, it was Jadhav's father who bore much of the daily burden. While Jadhav was away from the village, his father coordinated labour, arranged water removal, and managed the stream of small crises that arrived without warning. The emotional and physical toll extended well beyond the principal farmer.
Some things reveal their true cost not through money, but through experience.
The reckoning
Monsoon Forces the Hand — and the Math Changes
As the monsoon drew near, continuing the project became untenable. The rains would render any further excavation impossible, and the cycle of flooding showed no sign of ending on its own terms.
After nearly six months of effort, Jadhav made what he describes as a practical decision: abandon the original 20-foot target and accept the 13 feet that had been won.
It was not the outcome he had planned. But it was the outcome the ground — and the water beneath it — had permitted.
"Nothing in farming is ever as simple as it looks from the outside," Jadhav reflected. The financial cost of a project, he observed, is only the most visible part of its price. Time, management bandwidth, unexpected obstacles, and the mental pressure of stalled progress are real costs too — they simply do not appear on any estimate.
The lesson
What the Well Actually Cost
Jadhav is candid that this experience reshaped how he thinks about farm decision-making. Farmers, he argues, are diligent about calculating input costs — seeds, fertiliser, labour, infrastructure — but systematically undervalue the management overhead and psychological load that complex projects generate.
Three things, he says, determine success in farming as much as capital does:
- Planning — rigorous, scenario-tested, and honest about what can go wrong
- Patience — the capacity to stay the course when progress is invisible
- Adaptability — the willingness to revise targets when the ground refuses to cooperate
The well that was meant to go 20 feet deeper now goes 13. It is a smaller gain than intended. But Jadhav frames the months of difficulty not as a failure, but as tuition — paid not in rupees, but in experience. As he put it: *"Some things reveal their true cost not through money, but through experience."
Why it matters
Jadhav's account is a candid reminder that farm infrastructure decisions carry hidden costs that rarely appear in any financial estimate — coordination time, family labour, repeated rework, and the psychological weight of stalled progress. For farmers across Maharashtra and beyond who are investing in water security through well-deepening or bore-well projects, this story argues for building contingency time and management bandwidth into any such plan, not just a contingency budget. Policymakers designing subsidy schemes for farm water infrastructure would do well to note that on-ground execution complexity often far exceeds what a project proposal anticipates.
Frequently asked
- Who is Santosh Jadhav and why did he decide to deepen his well?
- Santosh Jadhav is a farmer from Sangli, Maharashtra, and co-founder of the Indian Farmer platform. Growing concern about water availability on his farm led him to plan a 20-foot extension of an existing 40-foot well, with work beginning in December 2024.
- What obstacles did Jadhav face during the well-deepening project?
- Underground springs repeatedly refilled the well after each pumping session, and rock blasting caused water to release into a nearby canal, flooding the well again. This cycle — pump, drill, flood, stop — repeated across December, January, February, and March, with every workaround adding cost and time.
- How much of the planned depth was actually achieved?
- Jadhav had planned to deepen the well by 20 feet. After nearly six months of work, and with the monsoon approaching, he accepted 13 feet as the final outcome — a practical decision rather than the original target.
- What broader lesson does Jadhav draw from this experience for other farmers?
- Jadhav argues that farmers typically estimate financial costs carefully but underestimate the time, management load, unexpected obstacles, and mental pressure that complex farm projects carry. He says success in farming depends not just on money, but equally on planning, patience, and the ability to adapt when circumstances do not follow the plan.
This is an original IndianAgri report. The analysis and India context are IndianAgri's own.