Women's right to own property around Kolleru lake endangered

By Our Staff Reporter

ELURU, NOV. 19. Women's right to ownership of property is endangered in the cluster of villages within and around the Kolleru lake.

As the noted Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen put it in his recent inaugural lecture for the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University, denial of the rightful share in the ancestral property to women forms part of "many faces of gender inequalities" which offers itself to be the other side of the development in the coastal region which could be attributed to the twin major irrigation sources of the Godavari and the Krishna rivers.

Ownership of property continues to be a male domain in the social life of the people in the villages in the plus five contour of the lake. Male members in families are alone considered heir apparents to the properties, thanks to the patriarchal system which still holds its sway over the social fabric of the area. However, the women get their share in property only after the death of their spouses. And the rights over the property deems to be transferred again to the male children after the death of the widows. But it is not applicable in the case of widowers.

Noticeably, the women were found to be not assertive about their property rights because of poor awareness and literacy levels, although not ignorant of their rights guaranteed by a `State amendment' effected to The Hindu Succession Act, 1556, during the tenure of N.T. Rama Rao as the Chief Minister in 1986.

Spread over an area of 2330 sq. km, the Kolleru lake was formed between the alluvial plains of river Godavari and river Krishna due to the natural geological formation covering 28 villages in two mandals of Krishna district and 50 villages in seven mandals of West Godavari district.

According to official information, there are 122 villages in the lake area out of which 46 are bed villages and the remaining 76 are belt villages. Besides, a number of other villages sprang up in the lake bed by encroaching upon Government land in course of time. Around 3 lakh people, mostly from Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes communities, are living in these villages. The major source of living for these inhabitants continues to be fishing for generations. However, they switched over to inland fishing of late as a fall-out of the boom in aquaculture. Of the total extent of 90,000 acres in the Plus Five contour, the Government gave enjoyment rights to a section of people over 20,000 acres.

The Government also delegated assignment rights to the SCs over an extent of 7,500 acres of land. This apart, an area of 17,500 acres was encroached upon by people from outside in the prelude to the aqua boom.

The inhabitants lease out the lands for conversion to fish tanks to the enterprising and affluent people from outside and the latter do fish-rearing in tanks with heavy investments in the name of cooperative societies formed with the local villagers. Land transfers are prohibited in the area since declaration of the lake as a wildlife sanctuary. In turn, the inhabitants get lease which ranges anywhere between Rs 8,000 and Rs 22,000 per annum depending on the bargaining power of the landholders. As a majority of the inhabitants are poor and find themselves out of reach for institutional credit, pisciculture is unaffordable for them.

According to people in Kalakurru and Maheswarapuram villages, the lease amount is apportioned among the male members in families, leaving their female counterparts high and dry. The women mostly confine themselves to the houses, cooking food and tending to children, while their male partners go out to work in fish tanks and fishing in the lake. Income generation for feeding families has become solely a male bastion as the women are not exposed to going out fishing in boats in the lake, spraying feed and fertilizers and catching fish in the tanks with neck-deep water and packaging the fish in an attractive form. Women are familiar only with the farm work. But they are rendered jobless after the entire farm fields have been turned to fish ponds. To quote Tirupati Swamy of Maheswarapuram, women ostensibly have little or no say in family management.

Priyadarsini Mahila Mandali president, Ms P Kanakaratnam, said women used to contribute their mite to families by rearing ducks and working in the farm fields before the advent of pisciculture which brought about a drastic change in gender relations in the area. Yet, she is not remorseful. "After all, my parents got my marriage performed by spending good amount of money and they had given even dowry to my in-laws at the time of my marriage. My parents fulfilled customary rituals during festivals like offering new clothes till their death," she explained and asked: "What else could they do more for me?".

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Next     : 'New scheme to widen income tax base'