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dam-l LS: Women Power for Water Management in Karnataka
>From Development VISIONS, Lahore-Pakistan.
http://www.brain.net.pk/~daima/waterline.htm
VOLUME 01, NUMBER 14
Tuesday, November 30, 1999
<waterline@egroups.com>
COMPILED AND EDITED BY:
Khalid Hussain <daima@brain.net.pk>
Zubaida Hussain <dvpk@usa.net>
RIGHTS-INDIA: ONCE ORGANIZED, RURAL WOMEN REALIZE THEIR POWER
By Keya Acharya
MULBAGAL, India, Nov 25 (IPS) - An intense sea of village women listen
quietly to speakers from the city seated on a podium. ''You are woman
power, you are India,'' thunders a high court judge.
But the women, seated cross-legged on the floor, are clear they want to
hear more than words. ''We want recognition, not praise,'' says Pappamma,
36, secretary of the Grameena Mahila Okkutta or the rural women's
federation.
The 4,000-member group of barely literate women, which is still growing,
has just presented a memorandum to the government, wanting the traditional
village water tanks, where rain water is stored, de-silted.
The meeting in Mulbagal village was called by the village women, who
invited the speaker of Karnataka's state legislature, M.V. Venkatappa and
High Court Justice Gopal Gowda to persuade them to take up the matter.
It could be raised as a PIL or public interest litigation, the judge
explained to the women. ''Come to me with your petitions. I will personally
look into it,'' he promised.
Since 1997, the federation has been mobilising the women to collectively
raise their voice in demanding the government take responsibility for
cleaning the village water tanks, on which poor people are dependent for
drinking and irrigation water.
For the first time last year, they wrote to the local government official
in charge of development to release to them the funds allocated for
de-silting. The officer, a woman, said ''she will look into it, but has
done nothing,'' says Pappamma.
The assertive women are not prepared to wait indefinitely. Early next year
they plan to picket the state government office in Bangalore, the capital
of Karnataka state, if their request is not taken note of.
The water tanks are the life of arid Kolar district, where some 4,500
centuries-old tanks were until 1947 maintained by royal patronage. But
neglect has choked the sluices and silted the basins, causing a more than
50 percent loss in storage capacity affecting the rich paddy and sugar-cane
harvests here.
Since India's independence in 1947, the state Irrigation Department has not
once cleaned the water tanks, though the state's financial outlay for
irrigation this fiscal year is about 420 million dollars.
''Because of its belief in mega-water projects, the government has totally
neglected minor irrigation,'' observes Jayalakshmi Rao of Gram Vikas, a
rural NGO in Mulbagal that helped set up the Federation.
In 1981, Gram Vikas started mobilising marginalised women and children into
self-help groups which grew in time to address natural resource problems.
While the rich farmers sink tubewells to grow cash crops, the poor farmers
in rural India depend on rainwater.
A 1998 study on the status of rural women in Karnataka undertaken by the
Bangalore-based National Institute of Advanced Studies, shows that though
only 2 percent of women use tanks or rivers for drinking-water, over 61
percent of all women are seriously affected by the seasonal availability of
water.
India's total groundwater need was assessed at 64 million cubic metres
(mcm) in 1998, while it had only 43 mcm available. While Karnataka's
groundwater recharge is about 50 percent lower than current consumption,
the situation countrywide is as grim.
Across the world, all over South Asia, in Sub-Saharan Africa and in the
Middle East regions water tables are falling dangerously. Disputes loom
large over water-usage, especially in the Nile and Jordan basins, where
millions of small farmers' livelihoods are at stake.
In Kolar too small farmers' lifestyles have deteriorated. ''Many farmers
have left to work as 'coolies' or daily-wage workers in Bangalore,'' says
Muni Venkatappa, a small farmer.
Venkatappa who owns 4 acres of dryland ekes a subsistence from growing
millets and groundnuts. His land is not near enough to be irrigated by the
village water tanks, but he is among those keen to have them in working
condition.
''Even if they fill up, my land won't get water, but I'll get work from
farmers near tank-areas. I will also get water for me and my cattle and
make money from the desilting-work,'' says Venkatappa.
Gram Vikas feels de-silting will alleviate many problems in any dryland
area. ''The water-table will rise, marginalised farmers will manage two
annual crops, fish-rearing in the tanks and dairying from generated fodder
will bring some money and fields will get nutrients from the silt,'' says
M.V.N. Rao.
In 1997 the Federation mobilised local labour to de-silt three tanks, and
to prove that it can be done. A 11-acre tank took three months to clean,
with 120 people dredging and loading 25 cart-loads of silt daily. It cost
about 120,000 dollars.
''Tank desilting is beneficial to an entire socioeconomic infrastructure.
It is therefore unfair to expect the families directly benefiting to bear
its costs,'' says Rao.
The women's Federation intends to force the government's hand. ''We need
government help,'' asserts Pappamma. They intend to fight for it. (END)