Recasting Citizenship for Development - File UPI

248 SEEMA KULKARNI
rearing, cattle rearing, brick moulding and vegetable growing, that are
crucial from the point of view of household consumption. In all these enterprises,
the economic benefits are not very high, thereby forcing women
out of irrigation usage (Cleaver and Elson 1995).
The economic criterion also raises some very critical issues regarding
what is really economically affordable for women. Most studies and experiences
indicate that women rarely have control over their own or the
household income. In many of the drinking water schemes, guaranteeing
assured supplies has prompted women to agree to the ‘user pays’ principle.
However, willingness to pay cannot be equated with the ability to pay.
This leads to critical questions: how does one arrive at what the necessary
quantum of water for meeting livelihood needs is? And how can this
become affordable? Water also has other social and cultural dimensions;
given the nature of the resource and the socio-cultural value that it commands;
treating water purely as an economic good may not be a very
viable option.
Cost recovery is the other principle that is seen as critical for reforming
the water sector. Although this is happening rapidly in the drinking
water and sanitation sector, the irrigation sector too is not far behind. An
example is the recently formulated scheme of the Minor Irrigation Department
of the Maharashtra government supported by the KfW (the German
development bank), which promises to involve the beneficiaries from the
resource development stage itself. The new terminology is Participatory
Irrigation Development and Management (PIDM). The scheme is designed
in such a way that the beneficiaries themselves bear a large part (60 per
cent) of the distribution costs. This would be done through a combination
of contributions in the form of labour, cash and bank loans. Here, it was
found that a large part of the labour contribution came from the women
of the beneficiary households. Experiences from across the world also
show that the labour inputs for capital cost recovery and for recovery of
the operation and maintenance costs of the irrigation schemes are largely
borne by the women of the households. Thus, a gender analysis of the
implied cost savings from decentralised management systems with appropriate
cost recovery and pricing mechanisms may reflect hidden costs in
terms of the increased labour for women at the community level (Green
and Baden 1995).