It is a whiff of freedom that breezes over the cotton crop in Bachiben Bhil, a tribal woman’s farm, who has now taken to constantly calculating the expected crop yield and the profits she might make. And with good reason. For four years, her family tilled the farm, which it mortgaged for Rs 10,000. Now Bachiben cannot help thanking the “Mahila Mandal’’, which gave her the money to free their land.

In an unique experiment, financed by the Asian Development Bank ADB and conceived by Vikalp, a women’s group working in the tribal pockets of Vadodara and Narmada districts, mortgaged farm land of below poverty line BPL 31-odd tribal families was freed this year. They in turn will repay the amount at their convenience to the women’s collective, meanwhile sharing the crop produce or a portion of the free land with landless members of the group.

Vikalp had helped raise 42 women savings groups in Tilakwada block of Narmada district, which formed a collective, Stree Sangathan. It was during the frequent meetings of the Sangathan that the issue of debt and land mortgaging came up. And in those discussions lay the seeds of the ambitious project of a livelihood programme for women, which can trigger self-reliance with micro financing.

To gauge the extent of land mortgaging and its reasons, a preliminary survey of 76 BPL families in five villages in Tilakwada block of Narmada district was carried out. And to no one’s surprise, most tribal families had their land holdings, usually an acre or two, mortgaged for a small amount, though interest free to another villager to tide over marriage, funeral expenses or even medical expenses. Bachiben in Kasundar village had mortgaged her land to pay the alimony amount to one of her divorced daughter-in-law, as is the practice amongst the tribals in the area. The family continued to work as agricultural labourers, despite being marginal farmers.

Bachiben, also a member of the savings group this year, is one of the 31 odd members whose land has been freed by the ADB assisted project. “This kind of programme has never been tried out before, the idea is to use micro-financing for the landless or marginal farmers, and in this case, the women become self reliant as well,’’ says Pranay Sinha, who was the deputy director of Gujarat state rural development department for the ADB programme when the project was conceived.

Like the officials, the tribals are full of hope. Though she presides over the Stree Sangathan, the assistance also helped Sumitra Baria in Gangeria village to free her one-acre farm, which she had mortgaged to tide over medical expenses two years ago. In Kasundara village, Sharifa, Bachiben’s neighbour, wants help to free her mortgaged land. Maniben Baria, the vice president of the Stree Sangathan, and a veteran member of the group, is confident that they can carry on the project without external assistance in future.

“Our corpus fund is building up through savings group as well as the share from these women whose lands are freed. We can then extend help to other women in future’’ says Maniben. To ensure that the land is not mortgaged again, agreement deeds are being drawn up and also in the freed family land, joint ownership of the woman is now being ensured.