Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

160 CHHAYA DATAR
of Maharashtra there has been no ‘Pani Adhikar Andolan’ (Water Rights
Movement), or even a struggle for access to community wells for productive
uses. Assured water is the key in any attempt to enhance productivity
of the land by using water judiciously, and bringing public and private
fallow lands under cultivation. The women’s thinking is crippled by water
scarcity, for which they find no solution.
In two villages, Keshegaon and Ansurda, where the sarpanches were
very supportive, the women appeared very keen to know all the details of
the scheme and asked about the kind of agreement required. The Sarpanch
came with us to meet the collector to ask for land for the women. However,
the collector said that gairan was being demanded by everyone and he
could not favour women over others.
The women’s interest in the marketing aspects was very welcome. They
wanted to know the viability of the scheme and were concerned about
the possibility of getting compensation or insurance cover in the likelihood
of the plantation being devastated by pests. The women were aware of
their own limitations and their incapability of negotiating in public life,
in the markets. They wanted some assurance of purchase, or, in economic
terms, forward linkages, before they take up the activity of producing the
fruits. They also expressed concern about the problem of transportation,
as some villages did not have proper roads.
The possibility of intercropping was suggested as a part of the scheme,
till the trees grow and start yielding money. Women were aware that this
activity would also require some amount of investment and asked where
the money would come from. Their major concern was regarding wages
for their work. They realised that if the grant was given only after the
inspection for the survival rate, the scheme was not meant for them, but
only for rich farmers. Indeed, they did not bother to check out the scheme
because their experience showed that only rich farmers or absentee farmers
could afford to wait for the grant to be delivered at the end of the year,
which was supposed to be payment towards wages. The real marginal
farmer, who would put her own labour in the orchard but would not get
wages till the end of the year, would face a problem of survival.
The women also realised that the key to making the scheme work for
them was to ask for weekly, or at least monthly, wages, which would enable
them to develop a sense of ownership and not be tempted away by
some good wage-earning opportunity. However, they could not answer