Maharashtra consultation flags gap between women’s legal rights and land ownership

NCW, MSCW and SLRCG, TISS representatives at the consultation on state-specific laws. Pic/By Special Arrangement

A legal consultation in Mumbai has highlighted the gap between having a legal right and being able to enforce it, particularly for women and senior citizens. The National Commission for Women (NCW), Maharashtra State Commission for Women (MSCW) and TISS's School of Law, Rights & Constitutional Governance held a consultation on Monday to review state-specific laws covering senior citizens, inheritance and succession.

Inheritance, justice, dignity

Eight in 10 rural women workers in Maharashtra are engaged in agriculture, but fewer than 2 in 10 farm holdings are in a woman's name. According to the 2025 Periodic Labour Force Survey, 82 per cent of Maharashtra's rural female workforce works in agriculture, compared with 58 per cent of rural men.

NCW, MSCW and SLRCG, TISS representatives at the consultation on state-specific laws. Pic/By Special Arrangement

Yet women hold only about 15.5 per cent of the state's operational farmland. The issue was central to the consultation at TISS's S Parasuraman Hall, attended by judges, advocates, prosecutors, academics, students, civil society groups and DLSA Mumbai para-legal volunteers.

Working the land is not the same as owning it

NCW chairperson Vijaya Rahatkar linked women's economic empowerment to land ownership, saying women must own land and have a say in decisions concerning agricultural resources.

Recognition without ownership

Maharashtra's Women Farmers Empowerment Act gives women farmers legal recognition through a certificate independent of land ownership. A participant, requesting anonymity, said the certificate can help women access credit and government schemes but does not make them owners of the land they cultivate.

Rahatkar also raised the plight of widows of farmers who died by suicide, who can be left dealing with land, debt and paperwork in someone else's name. In June 2019, the state resolved to transfer land titles and 7/12 extracts to such widows. The consultation did not establish how many have received them.

Maharashtra's farm economy

Women landholders: 15.47 per cent in 2021-22, up from 12.9 per cent in 1995-96

Average holding: 1.18 hectares, down from 1.58 hectares

The figures do not show whether women landholders make farming decisions, but they underline why ownership matters.