The Hindu Business Line : Of farmers, gender sensitivity

IT WAS a sheer co-incidence that one got to watch the Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram's Budget speech hardly four days after meeting groups of farmers in the Madurai/Theni belt of Tamil Nadu and observing their distress levels after three consecutive drought years. Farmer suicides may not have been reported from this belt but their plight is so pathetic that 22-year-old Prabha, one of the women farmers this correspondent spoke to at Echampatti village, about 40 km from Madurai, said in desperation: "Please take me with you to Chennai. I'm prepared to do any work... even clean toilet."

The men were stoic and kept a brave face as they described how at least one member of their families had migrated to a nearby town to work as a daily labourer for Rs 300-400, and how entire families survived on this meagre sum. But the women found it difficult not to express their desperation. Muttunayaki, a small farmer's wife in one of these villages, said that on the rare day she found work, she got Rs 10 for five hours of labour in the harsh sun. "You pay more for a litre of bottled water, don't you", she had asked.

So on Thursday, as the equity market tanked on worries of a new turnover tax and the BSE Sensex plunged south by 140 points, one wondered how the farmers would receive Mr Chidambaram's Budget proposals to improve their lot. As the day traders and speculators fled the stock market and brokers berate the Budget proposals on the fear they would dry up volumes on bourses, Budget 2004 may not exactly be ridiculed as the `Kulak Budget' of Charan Singh in the late 1970s. But it will be remembered for long for its focus on the farming community.

Mr Chidambaram's Budget sets much store by investing in the farm sector, improving credit flow to farmers, encouraging diversification into such areas as horticulture and floriculture, and above all, lays emphasis on doing all that is possible to make available to the farmer his most precious input — water.

In Madurai, Mr M. P. Vasimalai, executive Director, DHAN Foundation, had explained their initiative in organising farmers' groups to conserve, maintain and replenish natural water bodies like tanks and drinking water ponds. So, when the Finance Minister proposed a "massive scheme to repair, renovate and restore all the water bodies directly linked to agriculture" at a cost of Rs 100 crore, it was natural to seek his reaction.

While welcoming this as a good cause, he however cautioned the Finance Minister that the "money for this should not go to the contractors. It should go to people's institutions or farmers' bodies... those who use the water. Not only should the planning and implementation be done by the farmers, they should also be asked to contribute 10-25 per cent of the cost. This is possible and has been done by us. Only when this happens will there be a sense of ownership and the Rs 100 crore will be used effectively and lay a strong foundation for agriculture." Mr Vasimalai also welcomed the proposal for diversification into horticulture and floriculture. "This is an excellent idea because it will help farmers tide over drought periods when annual crops fail totally. " he added.

The increase in allocation for agricultural research and development to Rs 1,000 crore from Rs 775 crore, provision of additional capital to the Small Farmers Agri-business Consortium, introduction of a weather insurance scheme, and exemption from excise duty for tractors, dairy machinery and hand-tools are other measures that will bring some relief to the distressed farmers in drought afflicted regions. Also having interacted in Madurai at the Kalanjiam Foundation, a collective of the DHAN Foundation, with 52-year-old Chinnapillai, the famous symbol of the self-help group (SHG) revolution who had received an award from the former Prime Minister, Mr A. B. Vajpayee, in 2001, when he had touched her feet, one could imagine her bubbly laughter as the Finance Minister paid a tribute to the SHGs and promised a number of measures to strengthen this movement. Chinnapillai has organised thousands of agricultural labourers into kalanjiams (Tamil for a bowl of prosperity) and encouraged the poorest of the poor women to join savings and credit groups in hundreds of villages in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.

But while paying a tribute to the resourcefulness and initiative of such women, the Finance Minister had little to offer in terms of "gender budgeting". Striking a rare disarming note, Mr. Chidambarm urged women to give him another year to bring in the "gender sensitivities" that women's groups had urged him to keep in mind while preparing his Budget.

Well, if the 2 per cent cess on education, which promises to give at least eight years of basic education and nutritious cooked meals to children, meets its target, along with one of his "big dreams" to see that the girl child is not pulled out of school to fetch water for the home... and if he can bring smiles on the faces of millions of women like Chinnapillai, women taxpayers in urban India, will gladly pay that cess.

And wait for the promised "gender sensitivity" in his next Budget!

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