This policy  brief  has been jointly prepared by the Society for Promoting Participative Eco-system Management (SOPPECOM), Utthan and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and includes the findings of a study that attempted to understand the overall context and implications of women's participation in the irrigation sector.

The study aimed at identifying factors that either facilitated or constrained rural women' in the exercise of their rights as empowered water decisionmakers and its implications for equitable, gender just and sustainable management of water resources at the community level.  The study covered five water user associations across four districts, under the Maharashtra Water Sector Improvement Programme covering major, medium and minor irrigation projects.

53 women across diverse groups and a few men at the community level, government officials were interviewed for this study. A review of government documents was also conducted.

The study found that in terms of equity, sustainability and democratic participation under the new water reforms policy, the basis of right to water for those with land ownership left out most of the women, landless and dalits from access to water resources. Inequities were also found in terms of location and were perpetuated by certain institutional and technological choices. Women's voices were found to be absent in the whole decisionmaking process, which many a times continued to be male dominated leaving little space for women who ended up being lesser in terms of number and voice. 

The study concluded that  a lot needed to be done to make the decision making process more gender inclusive and recommended the need to constitute a planning and monitoring group for making irrigation more gender inclusive and capacity building for women.

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