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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Why the Budget may not benefit the female kisan -Jayashree Nandi

Why the Budget may not benefit the female kisan -Jayashree Nandi

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published Published on Feb 14, 2018   modified Modified on Feb 14, 2018
-The Times of India

Laduben, 70, of Kuda village in Gujarat's Bhavnagar has waited for more than 20 years to be recognised as a 'farmer' in government records and become the rightful owner of the land she cultivated for years.

Laduben's husband passed away when her three daughters were little and she was carrying her fourth child. Her in-laws got her name removed from the family varsai (inheritance document). Her brother-in-law insisted she adopt his son to gain access to the family land. She worked as farm labour to bring up her daughters, making another claim to her husband's land when the eldest one was to get married. When the gram panchayat refused, she moved court in 1999. Ten years later, the court ordered that Laduben's and her daughters' names be inserted in the varsai.

Hundreds of Ladubens have been documented by the Working Group for Women and Land Ownership (WGWLO), an NGO in Gujarat. In fact, across the country, rural India is witnessing movements demanding 'farmer' status for women.

With increasing migration of men to urban areas, more and more women are becoming cultivators, entrepreneurs and farm labourers. The Economic Survey 2018 calls it the "feminisation" of agriculture. The government has also started earmarking at least 30% of the Budget allocation for women in all schemes including agriculture to "mainstream" them.

But women farmers call it a farce. The majority are neither landowners nor farmers in sarkari data systems, so they cannot benefit from Budget allocations. "We feel highly disappointed that in the end, the issue of women farmers has only become a box item in the Economic Survey, used as a publicity tool by the government to make it appear that they are sensitive to women farmers," Mahila Kisan Adhikar Manch (MAKAM) said in a statement on the Budget.

Shilpa Vasavada, convenor of WGWLO, says the problem is that most of the government's agriculture subsidybased schemes are for the 'landowner'. "While the agriculture schemes do not specify whether it is for man or woman landowner, we operate in a patriarchal social set-up, where land is mostly owned by male farmers." Women have to struggle hard to assert their legal rights, and often remain deprived of land both in their parental as well as in-laws' home. "And without land in her name, she remains without access to any entitlement from the government," she adds.

According to Census 2011, more than 40% of all female workers are agricultural labourers and constitute nearly 65% of agriculture workers. According to NGO estimates, less than 13% of agricultural land is owned by women. This, despite the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 which prescribes equal distribution of property among all inheritors, irrespective of gender.

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The Times of India, 12 February, 2018, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/why-the-budget-may-not-benefit-the-female-kisan/articleshow/62878072.cms


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