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Question – What has been the impact of Self Help Group (SHG’s) on India’s rural life? Describe.
- February 8, 2023
- Posted by: Pallavi Singh
- Category: Blog
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Answer –
Self-Help Groups (SHGs) are informal associations of people who choose to come together to find ways to improve their living conditions.
It can be defined as self-governed, peer-controlled information group of people with similar socio-economic background and having a desire to collectively perform common purpose.
SHG rely on the notion of “Self Help” to encourage self-employment and poverty alleviation.
Impact of SHG on rural life in India :-
1) SHG-Bank Linkage Programme has significantly improved the access to financial services for the rural poor.
2) Loans provided by SHGs have been instrumental in creating self- employment opportunities for the poor.
3) SHGs has helped in raising the living standards of the rural poor.
4) It has reduced dependence of exploitative informal credit sources like money lenders and landlords.
5) The participation of women in self-help group (SHGs) made a significant impact on their empowerment both in social and economic aspects.
6) A rural women engaged in a SHG is less prone to domestic violence has more social voice.
7) By promoting small savings among its members, Self-help groups (SHGs) has played a major role in poverty alleviation in rural area.
Way Forward :-
In India SHGs have been quite successful and has now evolved as a movement. As per NABARD report, 2019, there were almost one crore SHGs in India covering 12 crore families with deposits of *23,324 crore.
SHGs play a very important role in the economic and social advancement of women from rural strata of society.
Further, government programmes can be implemented through various SHGs. This will not only improve the transparency and efficiency but also bring our society closer to ‘self-governance’ as envisioned by Mahatma Gandhi.