LocationsBy Anu Garg, Development Commissioner cum Additional Secretary, Water Resources Department, Government of Odisha, and Abha Mishra, UNDP
Jaimani Behera had always worked the land, but never owned it. At forty, the mother of two from Begunia village, Jashipur block, deep in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district, had spent years under the sun, earning a meagre wage as a farm labourer. Land was a man’s dominion, and water—its lifeblood—was rarely in her hands to control.
But in a village where generations of women had walked miles to fetch water, Behera’s hands are no longer tied to the past. Today, she presides over seven acres of farmland, producing vegetables, rice, and mushrooms. She manages a solar-powered cold storage unit, a bio-floc fish farm, and a vermicompost operation. Her nursery has grown into a full-fledged agribusiness, earning her an annual income of ₹14 lakh (USD 16,000+). And unlike the many women before her whose work fed families but rarely filled their own pockets, Behera controls the earnings herself.
Her transformation was not accidental. It was the result of a government-led initiative—the Odisha Integrated Irrigation Project for Climate Resilient Agriculture (OIIPCRA), UNDP and the relentless efforts of various grassroots organizations. Behera was provided with high-yield vegetable and paddy seeds, infrastructure for water-efficient farming, and financial subsidies that allowed her to cultivate the land on her terms. And for the first time in her life, water—the very resource she had carried on her head in clay/brass pots since childhood—was now working for her.
Across Odisha, women like Behera are breaking free from an age-old paradox: they have always been the custodians of water but have rarely had a say in how it is managed. That, however, is beginning to change.
Jaimani Behera, Begunia village, Odisha, once a farm laborer, has overcome the odds and now owns seven acres of farmland, growing vegetables, rice, and mushrooms, while managing a solar-powered cold storage unit, fish farm, and vermicompost operation.
A Crisis, A Calling
India holds 17 percent of the world’s population but only four percent of its freshwater. The math has never worked in its favour, and as climate change intensifies, neither does reality. Nearly 600 million Indians face water shortages due to a number of vulnerabilities. The land cracks, crops wither, and the responsibility of fetching water—of making do with less—falls, almost unfailingly, to women.
In Odisha’s tribal belts, this daily struggle is visible in the silhouette of a woman walking a rugged forest path, balancing a clay/brass pot of water on her head. For miles, she walks. Her daughters follow. In 76 percent of Indian households, the burden of water collection falls squarely on women’s shoulders. The hours spent fetching water are hours lost—lost from education, from income-generating work, from rest.
Yet, in an irony, when land value rises—when irrigation systems are introduced and productivity flourishes—men, not women, reap the benefits. Even in agriculture, where nearly 50 percent of the workforce is female, women are often considered "helpers." Land deeds do not bear their names. Irrigation programmes are designed without them in mind. Their labour, critical and unrelenting, is seldom recognized as a force that moves the economy.
But across Odisha, from the forests of Mayurbhanj to the fields of Ganjam, women are forcing a reckoning. They are not just carrying water anymore—they are controlling it. Supporting and encouraging them is the Government of Odisha with OIIPCRA – envisaged to build capacities of rural women, integrating them into water governance and equipping them with tools and technologies to drive water resource management and sustainable agriculture.
The Kapileswar Self-Help Group, Mahulapalli village, Odisha, has transformed from unpaid laborers to empowered entrepreneurs by leveraging OIIPCRA subsidies and technical training to revolutionize fish farming.
Women Who Own the Water
Domi Nahak was sixty-five when she became a landowner for the first time.
For most of her life, she had been a daily wage labourer in Bhikaripali village, Chhatrapur, Ganjam district, scraping by on uncertain earnings. Then, in a moment of political will, the newly elected sarpanch allocated her 0.7 acres of tail end, fallow land. At first, the land was dry, unyielding. Then came a solar-powered borewell—installed with the support of OIIPCRA. Training sessions followed. High-yield seeds were provided. And suddenly, Nahak’s barren plot was green with brinjal, chili, and pumpkin earning around INR 40,000 ($500) annually.
With water, everything changed. The steady supply meant she could farm year-round. Her income rose, but more importantly, she gained financial independence—a freedom previously unimaginable.
Such stories are no longer outliers. Odisha’s government has made concerted efforts to place women at the heart of water governance. The Siba Sakti Pani Panchayat, a once male-dominated irrigation collective in Kalahandi, now includes 40 women members—nearly 40 percent of its total. Where once men decided how water was distributed, women now sit at the table, debating how to allocate it fairly. Their participation has reshaped policies, ensuring that water is no longer just a resource for farming—it is a tool for empowerment.
The state is also digitizing water governance through the Odisha Water ERP to track real-time data, ensuring transparency and accountability through various modules like eCAD (Pani Panchayat) that supports real-time monitoring of over 36,000 Pani Panchayats. For women, who have historically been excluded from decision-making processes, digital tools like these are levelling the playing field.
Domi Nahak, once a daily wage laborer, became a landowner at sixty-five, transforming her barren plot into a thriving farm with the help of solar-powered irrigation and OIIPCRA support, gaining financial independence.
The Future of Water Belongs to Women
Beyond governance, women are driving change through collective action. The Kapileswar Self-Help Group, formed in 2018, has revolutionized fish farming in Odisha’s Mahulapalli village, Dadhighai MIP, Ganjam. With zero capital at the start, the women leveraged OIIPCRA subsidies and technical training to introduce scientific aquaculture practices and are earning approximately INR 2.5 lakh ($2800) annually. Within five years, they went from being unpaid labourers to independent entrepreneurs, sharing profits and reinvesting in their community.
Their success is mirrored in Odisha’s Agriculture Production Cluster (APC) initiative, which aims to double the incomes of 100,000 women farmers. By forming producer groups and cultivating high-value crops, these collectives are proving that women-led agricultural enterprises can be just as—if not more—profitable than those run by men.
These efforts align with India’s larger push toward gender-sensitive water policies. The Jal Jeevan Mission and Swachh Bharat Mission have mandated that 50 percent of members in Village Water and Sanitation Committees must be women. And the Pani Panchayat Act, amended in Odisha, now recognizes women as independent water users—regardless of land ownership.
But challenges persist. Water rights, even when granted on paper, do not always translate into real authority. Market access remains limited for women farmers. And in many rural areas, deep-seated patriarchal norms continue to exclude them from decision-making.
Yet, if Jaimani Behera’s story is any indication, change is no longer a question of “if” but “when.”
In a country where women used to carry water on their heads, they are now carrying something far more powerful: the ability to decide its future.
Jaimani Behera now owns a bio-floc fish farm—water, a resource she once carried on her head in pots, is now something she has a say in managing.
