I was living in a small hut after I lost my husband three years ago, but it is now damaged by rain. Now I have no option but to take shelter in the cowshed of my brother’s house. I wish I had a safe shelter,” said Padmabati (32) widowed women of Katlaput village in Nandapur block of Koraput district.
The helplessness is evident from the mud floor of the four-foot shed where she manages to survive without any support. Padmabati silently awaits for the Government to reach her with some support.
The Odisha Government’s recent decision to enumerate homesteadless households in the State may bring hopes for thousands of destitute. A Revenue and Disaster Management Department circular said that keeping in view the recently revised income ceiling from Rs24,000 to Rs40,000, the State mandates to go for survey on campaign mode to identify the total number of homesteadless families in rural areas, to be completed by August 10. leasable Government homestead land up to 10 decimal in rural areas is to be allocated to eligible homesteadless families under OGlS rules and OPlE Act and rules by October 31.
This is going to be the third such enumeration exercise that the Government is targeting at in a span of 12 years. In 2004, the State Government had taken initiatives to provide land to the landless households based on available homesteadless data i.e., 2.49 lakh rural households. Subsequently, the ‘Vasundhara’ scheme was also announced in 2005-06 to provide 4 to 10 decimal of land to the homesteadless families. Besides, another enumeration of homesteadless was conducted in 2011 and as per Government reports, 5, 42, 830 homesteadless families received pattas between 2003 and 2015.
However, none of these initiatives by the State mandates for enumeration of women, particularly, single women – widowed, divorcees, abandoned, women who never married, and differently-abled women – who live with their family or extended family for socio-economic reasons. Just a chunk of woman-headed households got counted in the process. Ironically, dispossessed women living on their own have got counted, but the single women living under the shadow of family or extended family did not get counted because the State’s revenue laws says that a ‘family’ is eligible to get land. Single women have not been counted as separate ‘family’.
The State Government announced the Odisha State Policy for Girls and Women in 2014 for identifying single dispossessed women in rural areas, and prioritising to provide land and housing grant. The policy stated that ownership, access and control over assets by women are vital to their empowerment.
The policy also mentioned that Odisha has an established system of providing land to the landless including agricultural land, joint tilling in land distribution and house building assistance under Government schemes. Further, the identity of women as an individual is, however, subsumed within the definition of a household/ family in most of the land and house building schemes. The challenge is in reaching vulnerable women, including single women with land and house building entitlements.
Policy directives emphasised to enable women and women's groups to claim their rights over assets, land and housing through legislations and administrative measures such as (a)record all homestead as well as agricultural land allotments made in favour of landless, homestead less and displaced families under the existing laws, policies and programmes of the Government, in the name of the wife/woman; (b) prioritise benefits to all vulnerable women including single women under housing and land ownership programmes through appropriate definitions; (c) allot 0.04 decimal of homestead land in rural areas to women belonging to low income group and not possessing any house/ flat or homestead land and who are either widowed, unmarried, divorced or separated from husband by a decree or order of a court or under any custom or usage having the force of law, having attained 45 years of age or more, or women with more than 40 per cent disability, who have attained 30 years of age or more.
However, no action has been taken on this so far to enumerate and include single dispossessed women in the survey of homesteadless.
Experts say that if the Government goes for fresh enumeration, many families will benefit.
Dr Padmaja Mishra, eminent economist, however, feels that the deadline of August 10 for conducting survey sounds unrealistic keeping in view the extent of landless in the State. As per Socio Economic Caste Census 2011, there are about 54 per cent of rural household ( a total 4,661,262 households) who don't have land and 10, 61, 481 are woman-headed households.
Besides, Odisha has a sizeable population of rural households with a meagre monthly income of less than Rs 5,000 and 43.35 per cent derive a major part of their income from manual causal labour. land can bring transformative change in the lives of poor women casual and agricultural labourers and single dispossessed women because of its higher economic value and land ownership provides not only safe shelter, but social security, identity, address and dignity to women.
State Resource Centre for Women project advisor Dr Amrita Patel opined that the Government’s circular is silent about inclusion of single women despite enforcement of the State Government announced the Odisha State Policy for Girls and Women (2014). She strongly recommended that the Government needs to take effort to ensure that not only the woman-headed households, but the single women - the idowed, divorcées, unmarried and differently abled women - who live with their family and extended family get counted and covered through this programme. There is example of such efforts by he Government in several districts of Odisha like Ganjam, Mayurbhanj, Koraput and Kalahandi where the district Collectors have taken special effort to identify single dispossessed women and facilitate their land and social security entitlement. The logic is that if it has been possible in several districts, why can’t it be possible across Odisha.
Experts mentioned that the role of local youth in enumerating landless in Odisha Tribal Empowerment and livelihood Programme (OTElP) has been exemplary which helped Government provide 17,501 land pattas in 1,042 project villages. They also recommended that the Government needs to make the process of enumeration participatory by taking help of local youth.
They urged for clear guidelines by the Government to enumerate the homesteadless accurately, in a transparent and equitable manner that includes single women like Padmabati.