Prof (Dr) R.D. Gupta
In rural areas, both men and women must be motivated and trained in the latest, suitable and profitable agricultural technologies for sustainable development. But our developmental programmes are frequently embodied to train mainly to family requirements on use of technology and do not pay much attention towards women sector who contribute to family income and also undertake field operations. Moreover, the programmes meant for women are mostly concerned with trainings on house-keeping and handicrafts. Apart from these, training programmes the farm women of our country are also very keen to acquire the knowledge of farm technology since many of them work in the agricultural fields to perform various operations.
Women’s participation in economically productive activities is not new but it is a time immemorial practice. Now it is a matter of common observation that the women not only engage themselves in many of farm operations in their own fields but also work in the fields of others as hired labourers. It is believed that women’s share of labour hours is increased disproportionately to that of men. Women constitute almost half of the agricultural labour force and contribute more towards family income. Keeping this hypothesis in view, an attempt has been made to investigate the areas of training in which the farm women are interested. On the basis of observations and dealing with farm women in their participation in Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVKs) training programmes under SKUAST, Jammu and KVK Dhaula Kuan, Sirmaur, HPKV, Palampur the following, areas of trainings were recognized.
Crop Production: There are evidences that women employment has the potential to benefit not only household economic standard through increasing income but can bring over-all improvement in the household environment. For gainful employment and economic activities, the rural women can be imparted suitable trainings on farm technologies. They consist of selection and storing of seeds, techniques for preserving healthy seeds, seed treatment technique for nursery sowing, technique of transplanting for maintenance of space between plant to plant and row to row, importance of soil testing in fertilizers recommendations and methods of their application, safe application and storage of pesticides, use of biocides and cultural methods to check various diseases and insects, significance of organic farming to save the environment from being degraded. The above said training requirements of farm women can be designed so that their contribution to agriculture production can be enhanced. This would also add to their skilful involvement in the farming operation s which would ultimately increase their income.
Animal Rearing: In our country not only men but women are also engaged in rearing and managing of domestic animals. It is worthwhile to mention that domestication of animals is an older practice than agriculture. It is believed that about 25,000 year ago, the women first domesticated animals and thereafter an art of animal rearing was initiated. It is common observation in villages of all states in general and, hill states like Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and others, in particular where farm women take all the cares of bullocks, buffaloes cows, goats and sheep. It therefore becomes an imperative to impart training to our farm women on technical knowhow with regard to animal husbandry. In sorting out important areas of training in which farm women can be trained, are management of cross bred cows and buffaloes their feeding, milking and balanced use of feed for them. Apart from trainings on feeding, watering and milking of animals, other areas in which the women can be trained to make them good dairy managers, are sale of milk, cleaning of cattle and their sheds, and collection of cow dung for making manure and cow dung cake.
Besides the above areas of training the farm women can also be trained in processing of milk to prepare cheese, ghee and other milk products with minimum expenditure and maximum nutritive value. An area like managing and caring of poultry birds both for egg and table purpose, can entirely be entrusted to farm women who can devote their leisure in this gainful avocation of the society, who are in habit of rearing goats and sheep, can too be trained in keeping these animals more healthy, using latest technological knowhow.
Horticulture and Olericulture: Horticulture is another fertile area where farm women can be given training. The sub-areas of this disciplines mostly comprise of kitchen gardening, raising of vegetables, preservations of vegetables and fruits during their glut. As it is known that eating of fresh fruit, vegetables in plenty is essential to get nutrients, minerals and vitamins besides good health for a happy and healthy life. “Eat fresh fruits and leafy vegetables every day and keep the doctors away.”
While framing the training programmes in horticulture for Jammu region the cultivation of local fruits like ber, amla, galgal and guva must be given preferences especially  in the Kandi belt. On the other hand growing of litchi, mango and citrus fruits like kinnow, orange and mausami, must be given top priority in the irrigated areas. In hilly terrain, wherever possible stone fruits should be grown as well as apple, pear etc.
Home Management:  As the primary duty of women is to manage the home so about 70 to 80 per cent of their time is utilized in household work activities. However, majority of the rural women are unaware of the scientific way of management with available resources. By their traditional methods, most of the farm women neither bring out a closest ratio between input and output and nor get themselves released to take up other economic activities. Now our home science scientists have propounded certain low cost home making processes which can be profitably adopted by the farm women vis-a-vis housewives of urbanized areas. Such low cost home making processes may consist of training on nutrition, health covering diet, low cost nutritive recipes, method of cooking for preservation of nutrients, diet during pregnancy, lactation, infancy and illness and other phases of life. To impact training in such areas to the women would not only improve their skill but also keep them to have happy family.
In addition to the foregoing training programmes the training on cutting, designing, fashioning and tailoring have proved income generating units for drop out and widows.
Future Strategies
* There are prospects for the overall development of farm women, which is absolutely necessary to accelerate the growth of economy.
* If the rural women given importance to the beneficial influences of the training programmes, then there are lot of avenues for creating self-employment for them.
* The farm or rural women can collectively make use of the locally available fruits and vegetables to prepare squash, pickles and murabas (Preserves).
* They can establish their own cooperatives for production on large scale these products like Verka and Amul.
* They can also set up marketings on cooperative basis.
*  Follow up action programmes should be arranged involving various Government and non-government organizations. This will maintain the linkage and create an awareness among the farm women for their all round development in the future.
* The officers working in Horticulture and allied sectors are required to explore new markets with all infrastructural facilities to promote state’s Horticulture produce.

Shabir A. Dar
It is a common belief that gold is as dear to women, as a son to a mother. Same is true for a girl from village Lar of district Ganderbal, some 30 kms from Srinagar. In her early twenties, Ruksana, too nursed a desire to wear gold ear-rings. Coming from a poor family – her father a daily-wager and she herself earning a few hundred per month through knitting – their monthly earnings was hardly enough to meet the family expenses. So to save money that could fetch her golden ear-rings seemed like a herculean task.
In June this year, as part of Centre-sponsored ‘Umeed’ project, an initiative of the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), Self Help Groups (SHGs) started to function in Lar block of Ganderbal and few other areas of State, with an aim to alleviate poverty, particularly among women. And by the end of June, Lar block was successfully running 246 SHGs having 10-12 women per group. Each woman of the Self Help Group made a weekly contribution of not less than Rs 25 to a common pool, from where they could borrow money.
As a special case for Jammu and Kashmir, the Union Government relaxed the norms of the Umeed project and the criterion of the Below Poverty Level [BPL] was dispensed with and replaced by a process of participatory identification of the poor [PIP]. This cleared the decks for constitution of 90,000 Self Help Groups and enrolment of nine lakh rural women in the State. Ruksana also enrolled in one of the SHGs in Lar block and began depositing   Rs 25 in the common pool, with an aim to take benefit of its lending facility so that she could buy the much sought after ear rings.
The Central Government also extended all professional assistance for the success of the Umeed project by deploying Primary Resource Persons from Andhra Pradesh in J&K to train the local girls and women. Pertinently, SHGs are a success story in Andhra Pradesh running since 1950.
As a positive development, 246 SHGs in Lar block made a whopping saving of Rs 6,97868 from June 2013 to September 2013 and disbursed        Rs 3,34,250 in internal lending to the depositors. Ruksana, while taking benefit of the internal lending, took a loan of Rs 10,000 in August to buy gold ear-rings. Flaunting her priced possession she said “It is all because of SHGs that I could buy the golden ring. I thank the Government for this,”
The Central Government has sanctioned an amount of Rs 7,500 crore for J&K under NRLM. The scheme is launched in the State with an increased allocation from Rs 110 crore to Rs 755 crore.
With the allocation for the current year being about Rs 30.38 crore.
A special emphasis is to be given to two-third of the families in the State under the ambit of the scheme with the target of 90,000 women Self Help Groups over a period of five years.
Officials said there is special dispensation of allocating the funds on the pattern of 90:10 (Centre-state share) whereas in the rest of the country it is on the pattern of 75:25.  (PIB)

Dr Ashwani Mahajan
According to census 2011, population of Mumbai Island City declined by 5.75 percent between 2001 and 2011. Though population of Delhi did increase by 21 percent during this period, it has actually decelerated significantly from 47 percent decadal growth between 1991 and 2001, and rate of growth has declined to less than half now. Population of New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) area, declined by 25 percent, during this period.
Deceleration in the rate of growth of population of Delhi and Mumbai is raising questions about future of population growth of metro cities. Urbanisation is a natural phenomenon of economic growth. Though economic development and urbanisation cannot be considered synonymous, it does play an important role in improving living standards and thus human development.
Urbanisation may bring improvement in the lives of the people, provided there is sufficient provision of food, shelter, clothing, education, health, transportation etc. Today governments are washing their hands off from their basic responsibility of providing these services. Education, health transport etc. are becoming costlier, as in absence of government; private sector is entering into these sectors for profit. Housing is the biggest problem today. Earlier slums, even which are no less than hell but which used to be the hope for housing poor people are not much available as option. Non-affordability of housing rentals and non availability of building jhuggis as option, are behind slowing down of population growth in big metro cities. Metros like Delhi, Mumbai, etc. are no longer habituating poor people.
After partition of India, those who migrated to Delhi could easily purchase a house with merely five hundred rupees. Despite their limited resources, they used to manage the amount by selling their family gold and silver. Today this is not possible. To purchase a small flat one needs equivalent of 2 to 3 Kilograms of gold, which is beyond the imagination of an ordinary household. Today no ordinary person with a package of even 10 lakh annually, can think of owning a house (flat or plot). Even unauthorised colonies carry a price tag of rupees one lakh a yard. In authorised colonies, prices vary between two to five lakh per yard. Flats carry a price tag of fifty lakh to 2-3 crores. Barring a few rich people, house is beyond the reach of commoners. Situation is no different in cyber centers like Bengaluru and Hyderabad; and other metros.
Even in small cities, it is becoming more and more difficult to own a house for commoners, as property prices are multiplying there too. A cursory look at all 53 big cities with population of 10 lakhs and more, as per Census 2011, we find that in the last 5 years or so property prices have gone manifold; killing the dream of mango man to own a shelter of his own.
Scenario Changed in Last Two Decades
Though building a house in Delhi and Mumbai, has never been an easy task, however there has been a sea change in the last two decades. It is notable that price of plot in authorised colonies of Delhi was between three to four thousand rupees per yard. Whereas today, despite so called ‘recession’ in the last 3-4 years, land prices are keeping around 4 to 8 lakhs per square yard. That is, more than 130 times increase in the last two decades. Flats prices have also undergone a big increase, though less than proportionate to land prices. Owing a house in Delhi is no longer a possibility for an ordinary person. The reason for such a trend is growth of black money generated through unassuming scams. It is no secret today that black money is generally invested in property or gold. In property deals 50 to 80 percent of the deal money is in ‘cash’ (black) and rest 20 to 50 percent in cheque (white). ‘Loot money’ from commonwealth scam, 2G scam, coal scam and host of other scams has diverted to property in Delhi, Mumbai and even in small towns; leading to an unprecedented increase in property prices in the last few years. In the meanwhile, many foreign investors have also started investing in property in India, which has fuelled fire to this trend.
Learning from Other Countries
It is notable that in US, whose per capita income is 35 times that of India, a 1000 square feet flat is available for US$ 5 lakh, that in rupees 3 crore only. In national capital of India, same 1000 square feet flat is available between rupees sixty lakh to one crore (that is 1 lakh to 1.8 lakh US$) or even more, which is highly disproportionate, when compared with per capita income.
Developed countries have judicious land price policies to keep housing within the reach of commoners. For instance Singapore, which has attained the status of a developed country recently, has a wonderful land price policy. Despite being a capitalist country, Singapore government does not allow capitalists to play with land prices. Nearly 90 percent of the housing needs are fulfilled by the government, which opens registration for new houses from time to time. Government sells houses of reasonable sizes at government determined prices, which range between 2.5 lakh Singapore dollars to 5 lakh Singapore dollars. Given exchange rate of rupees fifty per Singaporean dollar, it mean people get houses at a price ranging between 1.2 crore rupee to 2.4 crore rupees, whereas income of an average Singapore citizen is 24 times that of an Indian.
Imperative to Adopt Pro-People and Policy
Under the circumstances, government has to adopt pro-people policies in housing. Firstly we need to discourage use of black money transactions in property deals. We can fix circle rates (land price, at which property registration are made), in tandem with the market rate. This would necessitate people to show their full property transactions legally. Some may argue that this step may increase the prices of properties due to higher registration cost. But in fact by discouraging involvement of black money, this would help property prices to decline in the long run. Moreover, this problem can easily be overcome by reducing the registration fee proportionately. Thus government revenue will remain intact and black money will be avoided in property transactions.
Secondly, government should itself distribute land at reasonable prices, after acquiring the same. Banks may finance such purchases of land by common people. Dream of poor for shelter cannot be realised unless government actively engage itself in this task, with proactive pro poor land policy. We cannot leave this task to the private sector.
(The author is Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, PGDAV College (University of Delhi)