Giving Women Greater Access to Land: The National Policy and the Measures Taken in Odisha

For centuries, Indian families that traditionally remain strongly patriarchal, women have occupied a position subordinate to men. In patriarchal families especially in India, women have always been expected to render service for the men and the family, the question of her rights and her title in land has been subsumed to be that of her husband. The public discourse in India on 'women and land rights', the initiatives of providing women greater access to land and to strengthen their land rights in recent years have drawn the interest of the academia in the country. It is observed that in rural India women participate in almost every aspect of agricultural work ranging from toiling of the field to sowing, weeding and harvesting. But they lack effective and secure legal rights to land. Lack of effective land rights often places rural women especially engaged in agriculture in a disadvantageous position from different perspective including her standing vis-a -vis with men. In fact, empowerment of women for placing them on par with men hinges among other things on their right to hold and inherit property. This paper intend to examine the legal provisions made at the national as well as the state level to provide women access to land and the hiatus that exist in precept and practice.