Women constitute a major workforce in agriculture with 75 percent of them, as compared to 59 percent men, working in the agricultural sector in India. Barring ploughing, a major share of agricultural work such as paddy transplanting, weeding, harvesting, sowing, and threshing is carried out by women along with allied activities like rearing of livestock and poultry, milking, milk processing, selling of chicken and eggs etc. Women also participate substantially in the construction and maintenance of irrigation systems.
Women work for as long as 14-18 hours on an average daily and expend more total energy a day as compared to men. However, they are often paid less than men and women’s participation in household and agricultural decision-making continues to be poor.
Women have substantial involvement and stake in domestic and agricultural water use. However, women's perspectives and roles in water management continue to be ignored while framing policies and programmes.
For example, the National Water Policies of India—1987, 2002, and 2012—do not give signi?cant importance to concerns related to gender. The National Policy for Women 2016 however, acknowledges the role played by women in agriculture and highlights the importance of legal provisions to ensure women’s rights over land. The policy also recognises that lack of availability of water increases the burden on women and highlights the need for designing gender sensitive programmes and projects keeping in view women as water users. It also suggests the need for involvement and training of women in initiatives on conserving and utilising water.
However, very few studies exist that explore the role that women play in managing water institutions, and the women's perceptions of the benefits they gain and limitations they face while managing water institutions in India. A study titled 'Gender perspective in water management: The involvement of women in participatory water institutions of eastern India' published in the journal Water examines the extent, nature and factors affecting women's involvement in participatory irrigation management institutions in eastern India, namely Assam and Bihar.
Assam and Bihar have abundant water resources as compared to other parts of the country and have been implementing participatory irrigation management (PIM) since the 1990s. The PIM Acts of Bihar and Assam are similar, and both states mandate an institutional structure for di?erent functions and the levels of devolution. Under the Acts the Water User Association (WUA) structure includes central level committees (CLCs) and village level committees (VLCs).
The study examined the functioning of selected Water User Associations (WUAs) from both states keeping in mind the diversity of existing irrigation systems and geographic locations. Indepth interviews of women and men in the villages were also conducted as a part of the study.
The study found that
The paper ends by arguing that while women experience a number of barriers in participating in water management institutions, the inclusion of women in government schemes, training programmes and education related to water management would be an important way to bring about gender equality and encourage women’s participation in water institutions.
Mandatory inclusion of women in the WUA executive committees would also greatly help in overcoming this handicap. Women’s views di?er from those of men on many matters related to efficient functioning of water management institutions. Encouraging involvement of women will greatly help to add new ideas and views to the discussions on water management and lead to better outcomes for the society and the economy.
A copy of the paper can be accessed here
Note: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Khandker et al (2020) ' Gender perspective in water management: The involvement of women in participatory water institutions of eastern india', Water, 12, 196.