Gender Mainstreaming in Watershed Development Programmes in Karnataka State - A Critique

The implementation of common guidelines on watershed development programs by Government of India is mainly intended to increase productivity of the land, bringing additional area under agriculture, employment generation and social upliftment of beneficiaries living in the rural areas. The guiding principle under the new common guidelines, which indicated clearly the equity and gender sensitization aspect so that the involvement of women and disadvantage section of society made mandatory in all stages of planning, implementation and post evaluation stages. The study was undertaken with the objective to understand the extent of gender mainstreaming component and inclusion of women in development of watershed areas of Karnataka state both at project and watershed levels. At project level, the official preparedness and action to integrate gender mainstreaming concerns was assessed. The study revealed adequate care was taken up by the officials to approach and involve women in planning, implementation and post project stages, a significant gender mainstreaming score was obtained at project level. At watershed level, the project implementation efforts of PIA showed women's participation work wise was more significant from their involvement in manual work and running of Self-Help groups and less in management of watersheds programs which needs to be improved. Some of the reasons for low participation in management might be the poor socio-economic status, women's participation was restricted to consultative nature and livelihoods introduced in watershed programs were not reflecting their needs.