India: fight for women’s rights for water and land – eSHOP24X7

Jayamani Behera has always been cultivating, but she has never been the owner of the land. The forty -year mother of the Aldea at the beginning of the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, Jayamani, has worked in the fields to hard sunlight for years. It was the right of men to get the owner of the Earth, and rarely controlled the water that irrigated them.

In a town where women of generations used to walk through miles to bring water, Jayamani Behera broke the ties of generations. Today, he is the owner of seven acres of land, which produces vegetables, rice and fungi.

In addition to this, it also manages a cold storage unit with solar energy, an organic fish farm. Its nursery has become a fully developed agricultural business, because RS 14 Lakh wins annually. Unlike her women in her first generation, who often remained as a housewife, Jayamani Behera himself wins herself.

But this change did not happen suddenly in his life. For this, it was helped, with an initiative called OIIPCRA in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Odisha, which focuses on irrigation for competent climate agriculture.

Under this initiative, Jayamani Behera received high -performance vegetables, rice seeds, infrastructure for agriculture and financial subsidy for agriculture.

Jayamani Behera of the village of Begenia in Odisha, who was previously an agricultural worker, is now the lover of seven acres of cultivation land, where vegetables, rice and fungi grow.

A crisis, a call

Throughout Odisha, women like Jayamani Behera are being released from archaic sets: these women have always been in charge of water sources, but their suggestions are not taken in their management.

India has 17 percent of the world’s population, but only four percent of the fresh water source is present here. As climate change is increasing, about 60 million Indians living in sensitive areas may have to face water.

Because of this, other problems come to light, including cracks in the soil, crop wilt and all the responsibility of bringing water and using it less in women.

76 percent of the Indian houses, the burden of bringing water is on the shoulders of women. The time dedicated to bringing water is a lost time that can be used in education, income or rest operation.

The irony is also that when the value of the land increases, or irrigation begins and the performance increases, it is not benefit, but only men. Even in agriculture, where about 50 percent of workers are women, women are often considered “assistants.” They do not have their names on the ground of the ground. It is not thought when doing irrigation programs. Its important and tireless hard work is rarely important in the economy.

New era

But from the forests of Mayurbhanj to the Campos de Ganjam, throughout Odisha, women are now playing the bugle of a new era. He is now handling the responsibility of management not only to bring water, but also.

They are receiving support and encouragement from this Odisha government project. Their purpose is to create the ability of rural women, integrate them into water management and equip them with technology to promote water resources management and sustainable agriculture.

Jayamani Behera is now the lover of a biological farm.

Water Resources Owner

At the age of sixty -five, Domi Nahak became the owner of the Earth for the first time. Most of the time of his life, he continued to live with an uncertain income making daily salaries in the Bhikharipali village in Chhatpur, Ganjam district.

Then, under a political project, the newly chosen Sarpanch assigned her 0.7 acres of land. Initially, this land was dry and sterile. But with the help of the OIIPCRA project, a solar power borewell was installed and raised.

So what was left! Domi Nahak’s arid land became green with Brinjal, Chilli and Pumpkin, and began to win around RS 40,000 per year.

Everything changed with water. The stable water supply meant that it could now grow throughout the year. His income increased, but the most important thing was that he was now financially independent, a freedom that he had never imagined.

Panchayat of water

Such innumerable stories now appear in the area. The Odisha government has made strong efforts to keep women in the center of water management. Kalahandi includes an irrigation group dominated by men, in Jal Panchayat, 40 female members are now included, that is, about 40 percent of the total members.

While previous men used to decide the distribution of water, now women also participate in the decision and participate in discussions on how to assign it fairly. His participation has changed policies. In addition, it ensures that water can become a means of empowerment, not just agricultural resources.

The Kapileshwar Self -Law’s Group meeting of the Mahulapalli village in Odisha, which has been able to bring revolutionary changes in the fishing field.

Water management is also being digitized in the state of Odisha to monitor data in real time and guarantee transparency and responsibility. Because of this, it is possible to monitor more than 36 thousand panchayats of water in real time.

In addition to water management, women are also playing an important role in bringing changes through collective action. The Kapileshwar Selfayuda group formed in 2018 has brought a revolutionary change in the field of fishing in the Odisha village of Mahulapalli.

Without any investment, women adopted scientific aquatic agricultural practices taking advantage of the subsidy and technical training received from the OIIPCRA scheme, so that they are now winning around 2.5 Lakh rupees per year.

In five years, he has become an independent entrepreneur, who shares the benefits of his community with his community and is also investing in the well -being of the community.

Domi Nahak, who was previously a daily worker, has become the owner of the land at the age of sixty -five years. With the support of UNDP, he has now gained financial freedom by converting his sterile land into a rich field to irrigating solar energy.

But the challenges are intact. It is not necessary that the water rights granted in the QAGZ really give women their rights.

Even today, the scope of women farmers to the market is limited. In many rural areas, the roots of the patriarchal criteria remain so deep that they are still excluded from decisive roles.

However, Jayamani is clear for Behera’s history: there will be changes, now there is no doubt … the question is that it will be “when.”

Detailed version of this first article Posted here Happened.