A commonly applied policy to India's ongoing depletion of groundwater is feeder separation. Introduced in Gujarat as the Jyotigram Yojana (JGY) scheme, it provides a separate and rationed electricity supply to farmers and an unrationed power supply to non‐agricultural users. JGY is claimed to increase groundwater storage. By using Gujarat district‐level data from 1996 to 2011 and by separately applying difference‐in‐differences and Bayesian regressions, we find that groundwater storage has continued to decrease with JGY. We contend that our empirical results show that JGY has been implemented without adequate consideration of (1) a publication bias whereby researchers have a greater likelihood of having their results published if they are statistically significant and show a positive outcome and (2) a ‘barrier’ effect such that communicating evidence across science and policy divides means that evidence may not be accepted, even when true, and this limits policy advice and options.

中文翻译：

---

印度的地下水正在枯竭：科学符合政策时

印度不断消耗地下水的一项普遍应用的政策是支线分离。它在古吉拉特邦推出，称为Jyotigram Yojana（JGY）计划，它为农民提供了独立且合理的电力供应，为非农业用户提供了不合理的电力供应。据称，JGY可增加地下水存储量。通过使用1996年至2011年的古吉拉特邦地区数据以及分别应用差异差异和贝叶斯回归，我们发现地下水储量持续减少与JGY。我们认为我们的经验结果表明，实施JGY时并未充分考虑（1）出版偏向，如果研究人员具有统计学显着性并显示出积极的结果，则研究人员更有可能发表其研究结果；（2）“障碍”这样一来，跨科学和政策交流证据的分歧就意味着即使事实真实，证据也可能不被接受，这限制了政策建议和选择。