THE IMPACT OF SELF-HELP GROUPS ON THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC

DEVELOPMENT OF WOMEN

SURINDER KUMAR ATTRI, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN COMMERCE, GOVT.

DEGREE COLLEGE DEHRA, KANGRA (H.P.)-177101

Email id – surinder.attri@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

Women play multifaceted roles for welfare of the families, communities and
the nation as they provide essential opportunities for socio economic
development of the respective regions too. Self-Help Groups emerges as an
important strategy for empowering women and to alleviate poverty. It is a
village based financial intermediaries usually composed of 10 to 20 local
women or men. India’s self–Help Groups movement has emerged as the world
largest and most successful network of community based organisation. Most of
the Self-Help Group found in India, Although Self Help Group also found in
other countries especially in South Asia and Southeast Asia. The main objective
of this paper is to know the impact of Self Help Groups on their social
economic development and poverty. The data is purely collected on the basis
of secondary sources. This paper is an attempt to identify the Self Help Groups
impact on socio economic development of women in the society.

KEYWORDS- Self-Help Groups Movement, Women empowerment

INTRODUCTION

In the early decades the position of women was miserable in the society and
women are not ready to take any assignment or job due to many reasons like
fear, shyness, male dominance in the society and parda system. But with
changed scenario the thinking of people has been changed due to education
and awareness. Now the problems of women are looked upon the problems of
social welfare and considered more seriously and ultimately solved in the form
of others way particularly in last 20 years. Self-Help Groups is now a well-
known concept. Self-help groups are necessary to overcome exploitation,
create confidence for the economic self-reliance of rural people, particularly
among women who are mostly invisible in the social structure. These groups
enable them to come together for common objectives and gain strength from
each other to deal with exploitation, which they are facing in several forms. It
is informal and homogeneous group of not more than 20 members has
registered. Self-Help Groups consists of maximum members because any group
having more than 20 members has to register under Indian legal system.
Therefore, it is recommended to be informal to keep the away from
bureaucracy, corruption, unnecessary administration expenditure and profit
motive.

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main objectives of this paper are to understand the role of self-help
groups for empowering women status and to examine the impact of Self-help
groups on skill development of women.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The study is based on secondary data and the data has been collected from
different published reports, text books and website journals.

SELF-HELP GROUP

The concept of self-help groups had its origin in the cooperative philosophy
and co-operators by and large, including the National Federation in the credit
sector, could not think of any better SHG than a primary co-operative credit
society itself. A SHG is a small, economically homogeneous and affinity groups
of women/men who voluntarily formed to save and contribute to a common
fund to be lent to its members. The main purpose is to work together for social
and economic upliftment of their families and communities.

A SHG promotes small savings among its which are kept either with a bank
or post office or corporate society. SHGs enhance the status of women as
participants, decision makers, and beneficiaries in the democratic, economic,
social sphere of life (Jain, 2003). The main objective of the Self Help group is to
create an appropriate and sensitive forum for addressing the need of people. It
also inculcates saving habits in the community and also improves the social
status.

MOVEMENT OF SELF-HELP GROUPS IN INDIA

Self-help groups are popular and famous in India and South-East

Asian countries. The Self-Help Groups concept was developed by the
economist Professor Mohammed Yunus of Bangladesh, Chittagong University
in the year 1975 to provide micro finance and micro credit for the poorest of
the poor, who were ignored and shunned by banks when it came to lending
tiny sums of money. Now, In Bangladesh, microfinance has been established as
a most powerful instrument to tackle the poverty. In India, self-help group
scheme was initiated by NABARD, main rural body emphasizing self-
employment generation for women living in rural and semi-rural areas. In
1987, NABARD provided MYRADA (Mysore Resettlement and Development
Agency [MYRDA) with a grant of Rs. 1 million to enable it to invest resources in
identifying groups, building their capacities and matching their saving after a
period of 3-6 months. In 1990, Reserve bank of India accepted the SHG
strategy as an alternative credit model. In 1992, NABARD issued guidelines to
provide the framework for a strategy that would allow banks to lend directly to
self-help groups and SHG-Bank linkage programme was launched. In India two
broad approaches prevail in case of micro financing i.e. self-help group- bank
linkage programme since 1992 (Lokhande, 2013). These groups are seen as
instrument for achieving variety of goals including women empowerment,
developing leadership abilities among poor people, increasing school
enrolments, and improving nutrition and the use of birth control.

The journey of the SHGs has made dramatic progress from 500 groups in 1992.
According to NABARD report in 2014, SHG now boasts of the world’s largest
microfinance initiatives with over 7.4 million SHGs representing 97 million rural
households. The number of saving linked self-help groups now stands at 74.3
lakh with a membership of over poor households showing a marginal increase
of 1.53peercent, whereas 73.18 lakh SHGs as on 2012-13. 90 per cent of these
groups are only women group. More than 400 women join the Self-Help
Groups movement every hour, NGO joins the Micro finance every day, the
spread of the SHGs is highly concentrated in the southern part of the country
with very few in the north and the east. Over half a million, SHGs have been
linked to banks overs over the years. Mostly in South India, account for almost
60 %, Andhra Pradesh has over 42 %, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh 12% and
11 % respectively, and Karnataka has about 9% of the total SHGs. Since the
advent of SHG in India, its growth rate has been very low in the states of Bihar,
Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madya Pradesh, Orissa, and union territory of
Andaman and Nicobar Islands where the status of women is still very
backward. The average saving bank balance of SHGs with banks as on 31-3-
2014 was Rs. 13322, with southern region reporting an average of Rs. 16878,
western region reporting an average 10367, while the North eastern states
having an average saving of only 4073 (NABARD report 2014). The basic
principles of Self-Help Groups are group approach, mutual trust, organisation
of small and manageable groups’ approach, spirit of thrift, women friendly
loan, skill training capacity building and empowerment.

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN INDIA

The self-help programme has become a well-known instrument for bankers,

development agencies and even for corporate houses which leads towards the
development process. Empowerment of women signifies harnessing women’s
power by promoting their tremendous potential and encouraging them to
work towards attaining a dignified and satisfying way of life through
confidence and competence. Empowerment as concept was introduces at
international women’s conference at Nairobi in 1985. The conference defined
empowerment as “A redistribution of social power and control of resources in
favour of women. It is the process of challenging existing power relations and
of gaining greater control over the sources of power”. The year 2001 had been
declared by Indian Government as “Women’s Empowerment year” To focus on
a vision where women are equal partners like men” because constitution of
India grants equality to women in various fields of life. Women of today are
ready to come forward and want more economic independence, their own
identity, achievements, equal status in the society and greater freedom. Govt.
of India provided for Self-Help Groups to them so that proper attention should
be given to their economic independence through self-employment.
Women and SHGs in many parts of the country have achieved success in
bringing the women to the main stream of decision making. Self-help Group
has become a source of inspiration for women’s welfare. Formation of SHG is
viable alternative to achieve the objectives of rural development and to get
community participation in all rural development programmes. Self-Help
Group is also a viable organised set up to disburse micro credit to the rural
women and encouraging them together into entrepreneurial activities (Abdul,
2007).

MODELS OF SELF-HELP GROUPS CREDIT LINKAGE IN INDIA

There are three models to provide micro finance to the self Help Groups
from external sources. They are as follows.

Model-1 Bank-SHGs Association

In this case, banks directly promote self-help groups. Here the bank
assumes to play the role of NGOs and ensure linkage with SHGs. Self-Help
Groups financed by the banks i.e. commercial banks (public and private banks),
Regional rural banks (RRB) and cooperative banks. In this model, banks
themselves take up the work of forming and nurturing the group, opening their
saving accounts and providing bank loans.

Model-11- Self-help groups formed by NGOs and linked to banks

In this model, NGOs act as facilitators. of Self-Help Groups is formed by

Agencies other than banks but directly financed by the NGOs and other formal
agencies are organise the poor into groups undertake training for awareness
and understanding building, introduce savings and internal lending, help in
maintenance of accounts and link them with the banks for credit
requirements. The bank directly gives loans to these self-help groups with the
recommendation of NGOs and other agencies.

Model-111 – NGO forms and perform financial intermediation role as a

lender to SHG

In this model, besides acting as a facilitator, the NGO and other

agencies also works as a financial intermediary. Here the loan is given to NGO
by the bank for on lending SHGs. This is the model, where the NGOs take
additional role of financial intermediations along with formation of SHGs. NGO
would be legally responsible for repayment and would bear the risk of non-
payment. Involvement of NGOs in microcredit system would have positive
influence as they are the grass root agencies with information about
borrowers.

Income Generating Activities

Self-help group members take up different income generating activities.

SHPIs play an important role in taking up the suitable Income generating
activities by the members based on the skills e.g. agriculture, animal
Husbandry, Hosiery, Candle preparation, Cane preparation, Cane Items,
carpets, Khadi, leather items, Spinning and Weaving, Basket weaving, Woollen
blankets weaving, sale of fruits and seeds, vegetables vending etc.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACT OF SELF-HELP GROUPS

Self-Help Groups (SHGs) is an instrument to change the condition of

women socially and economically.

 Economic Empowerment- Self-Help Groups provides economic benefits

to the women by providing income generating activities. It brings gender
equality and increase the women’s income translates more directly to
family being. According to the report by National Commission for
women. In India, women work for longer hour than men. The proportion
of the unpaid activities to the total activities is 51 per cent for female as
compared to males’ Over the above this unpaid work, they have the
responsibilities of caring for household which involve cooking, cleaning,
fetching water and fuel, collecting fodder for cattle and providing
voluntary assistance to vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals in the
family. This shows that tough there is still a long journey ahead towards
women empowerment. Women saves small amount of money regularly
and mutually agree to contribute a common fund. But this does not fulfil
all their needs.
 Social Empowerment- Empowering women contribute to social
development. Economic progress in any country weather developed or
underdeveloped could be achieved through social development. Hence
 women’s empowerment cannot be ignored. The social empowerment
means that the women should get an important place in the family and
society and should have a right to enable her to make use of avoidable
resources. The impact of SHGs ensures the equality of women as
decision makers, awareness about various programs and beneficiaries in
social democratic spheres of life. There is a change in the attitude of male
members of the families, now they are convinced about the concept of
SHGs.
 Micro-Financing Benefits- Self-Help Groups has aimed to enhancing
profitability for rural people. Cheap rural credit facilities take micro
financing; SHGs were designed to provide rural poor with access to
adequate capital. Microfinance through SHG gas become a ladder for the
poor to bring them up not only economically but also socially, mentally
and attitudinally and above all help them break through the stronghold of
explorative money lenders.
 Change in family Violence- Involvement with self-help group has reduced
the violence in about 25 percent cases especially due to reduction in
economic difficulties. In most of cases the members revealed that their
husband should also be involved in SHGs.
 Political Empowerment- The political participation of women means not
only using the right to vote but also power sharing, co-decision making
and co-policy making at all levels. Self-Help Groups enable women to
develop their communication skills to speak at Gram Sabha, public
meetings etc. SHGs function through its regular meetings where
members perform transactional activities and discuss over different
related issues, social; mobilisation through SHGs is enviable for political
empowerment.
 Employment- The Implementations of Self-Help Groups has generated
self-employment opportunities for the rural poor. The progress of the
program since inception assisted in formation of 35.7 lakhs SHGs,
assisted 1.24 crore swarojgaris in establishing their own micro-
enterprisers. The Government of India released Rs. 11486 crores under
this program, bank credit mobilisations is Rs. 19,017 crores. Total subsidy
provided is Rs. 9,318 cr. The program helped many participants in
 improving their economic activities. After joining the self-help help group
the women are economically and socially empowered.
 Access to Credit- Participation in SHGs is an improvement in a women’s
access to credit. The financial mobility due to participation in Self-Help
Group has led to an improvement in the quality of life. Overall many
families were able to address their basic needs better than before. Some
of the NGOs reports have shown that the record on repayment of loans
by women was better than that of men, and women were also more
likely to spend the income earned on their families, leading to improved
health and nutrition and quality of their lives.
 Saving- One of the primary benefit of participation in a SHG is the
opportunity to save regularly, access formal savings institutions and
participate in the management of these saving. They save regularly, have
their own bank accounts and make deposits in these accounts. SHG is
saving have a good impact on members in their ability to save their hard
earned money.
 Decision-making- The social impact of self-help group program increased
involvement in decision-making, awareness about various programs and
organisations, increase access to such organisation, increase expenditure
on health and marriage event, there is a change in the attitude of male
members of the family, now they are convinced the concept self-help
group and encourage women to participate in the meetings and women
reported that they have saving in their name and it gives them
confidence and increased self-respect. Within family the respect and
status of women has increased. Children’s education has improved
significantly. The sanitation in member’s households has improved and it
has led to better health in members. Members are now confident enough
to raise social status.

CONCLUSION.

As women contributes to the larger part of population in India. The existing

scenario is that women form an important part of the labour force and the
economic role played by them cannot be isolated from the framework of
development. But there are still quite a few areas where women
empowerment in India is largely lacking. Government should take various
initiatives to empower women of the country. Although the involvement of
women in SHGs is the right step for women empowerment. It a gradual and
consistent process but SHGs have the potential to have an impact on women
empowerment. Self-Help Groups programme clearly plays a central role in the
life of the poor. This programme has become a well-known instrument for
bankers, developmental agencies and even for corporate houses. Empowering
women is not just for meeting their economic needs but also for their social
development. There is evidence of increased household income, standard of
living for the program participants have increased and also the food security is
much more for the [programme clients. Micro financing is plying a significant
role in alleviate poverty and rural development. Since the women are the role
of family caretakers’ proper emphasis should be given to the rural women and
for empowering the rural women finance is required. Women can start
economic activities through SHG movement. Economic and social upliftment
took place with SHG movement. In this way, SHG concept is getting greater
support from women as well as from financial institution. But still, it has to go a
long way to achieve its objectives of inclusive development of every sphere.

REFERENCES

1. Abdul Raheem,2007 “World empowerment of women through self-help

group a sakthi sugans Ltd, p. 48
2. Annual Report of NABARD. 2006
3. Government of India, Annual Report of Ministry of Labour, Employment
and Rural Development& Economic Surveys of Different Years.
4. International women’s conference held at Nairobi in the year 1985
5. Jain R, 2003 “Socio-economic impact through self-help group”
Yojna,47(7), 11-12
6. Lokhande, M.A. (2013), “Micro finance for women empowerment-mA
Study of Self-Help Groups-Bank Linkage Programme”, International
Centre for Business Research, 2(2), 1-8.
7. http://www.nabard.org
8. http://indiamicrofinance.com.