Employment promotion and poverty eradication through wasteland development projects in West Bengal and Gujarat 

Since the early 1980s, several policy approaches to the development of wastelands, which are estimated to be 30 to 50 per cent of India's land, have evolved in India. The ILO has assisted in this national endeavour for employment creation anti poverty eradication, by looking into how women could participate in and benefit from wasteland development. The approach adopted by the ILO in two projects - one in and around Bankura District in West Bengal and another in Gujarat - was based on collective access to and management of (waste)land through women's organizations. With the help of two organizations - Center for Women's Development Studies (CWDS) in West Bengal and Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in Gujarat - the projects helped women organize into samities or women's development societies at village level. In West Bengal, the samities linked up together to form a larger, higher-level organization, Nari Bikash Sangha (NBS).

The women obtained their land in different ways. Most (88 per cent) of the land obtained by the women's societies in West Bengal was private land donated by residents of the village or families of women members. Some land was panchayat land (in West Bengal and Gujarat) and government revenue land (in Gujarat) to which the women societies obtained lease rights. The conditions under state and central legislations to obtain lease rights to public land were complex, stringent and sometimes contradictory so that access to government and panchaya land in both States was very difficult and lengthy. Government and NGO funds met labour and plantation costs and part of maintenance costs, providing women temporary wage employment. Other direct support interventions consisted of organizational and leadership training to strengthen women's organizations, technical training in land rehabilitation and plantation, support for various income generating activities (e.g. tasar cocoon rearing in West Bengal) and other socio-economic activities (small savings and credit schemes, adult literacy, crèhes, health services). In West Bengal, direct benefits to the women included: increased wage employment which led to more than 80 per cent reduction in seasonal migration among women, which pushed up daily wage levels, additional income from wage work on the land and from parallel incomegenerating activities, supply of fuelwood and fodder for subsistence needs, vegetables for consumption.

The samities and NBS in West Bengal have also been invited to represent women at panchayat and district levels and have become part of the representative local authorities' institutions. But beyond the immediate benefits to women and the new strategies for local development, these programmes, by promoting policy dialogue at the national, level, have had a notable impact on influencing the orientations of the national policies on wasteland development. Evaluating the comparative experiences on wasteland development and organizing a series of national workshops on the topic helped in the process of consensus-building on viable policies and strategies. The nexus of productive employment opportunities, secure access to land rights and participatory organization-building clearly emerged as the backbone of the successful strategy.

Sources: ILO: Women and Land (Geneva, 1989); ILO: Proceedings of ILO's National Technical Workshop on Women and Wasteland Development (New Delhi, 1991); A.M. Singh and N. Burra: Women and wasteland development in India, a study prepared for the ILO (New Delhi, Sage Publications, 1993).

Reader’s Kit on Gender, Poverty and Employment, Module 3.Access to Assets