Impact of Land Acquisition on Women: An Anthropological Case Study on Gokulpur, Paschim Medinipur (India).

ABSTRACT

The acquisition of agricultural land for industrialisation leads to a number of socio-economic consequences. The Paschim Medinipur district in the state of West Bengal is chiefly an agricultural district where more than seventy per cent of the population lives in the rural area and among them majority depends on agriculture and agriculture related occupations. In this paper, we have presented some empirical data on the socio- economic consequences of women of the establishment of the industry on the fertile agricultural land in the Kharagpur subdivision of Paschim Medinipur district in the early 1990s with the cooperation of West Bengal government.The findings revealed that acquisition of agricultural land for industry leads to change among the women as well as children of landloser families who depended on agriculture for their livelihood. Field data showed that the school dropout rate among female members of landloser families have been increased than nonlandloser families. This study has also showed that after the acquisition, livelihood pattern have been changed among the female members of landloser families. Moreover the “age at marriage” have been decreased among the girls of landloser families than non- landloser families.