*Head, Department of Commerce, Lumding College, Lumding, Nagaon, Assam, India
**Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce, Assam University, Diphu Campus, Assam, India
Online published on 15 February, 2014.
Self Help Groups (SHG) emerges as an important strategy for empowering women and to alleviate poverty. SHGs constitute a widely accepted development strategy for poverty reduction as they are perceived as powerful vehicle for the promotion of micro-credit and micro-finance. In recent years, SHGs are emerging as alternative credit source to the poor. In fine, SHGs is a unique innovation of credit delivery technique to enhance income generating activities, reduce poverty and can also be termed as empowerment tool for the common people and the women in particular. The aim of this paper is to review the literature on SHGs as an empowerment and financial model of development. Based on the survey of literature a scale is developed to measure opinion of direct stakeholder on this issue which is consisted of 40 items concerning 8 conceptual subscales relating to SHGs as an empowerment tool and on the other hand a scale 30 items concerning 7 subscales to measure perceptions of direct stakeholder on this issue is also developed relating to SHGs as financial model.
Direct Stakeholders, Empowerment Model, Financial Model, Quality Parameters, Self Help Groups
