Self help group disburses micro credit to the rural women for the purpose of making them enterprising women and encouraging them to enter into entrepreneurial activities. Credit needs of the rural and urban poor women are fulfilled totally through the SHGs. SHGs enhance equality of status of women as participation, decision-makers and beneficiaries in the democratic, economic, social and cultural spheres of life. A SHG is conceived as a sustainable people's institutions that provide the poor rural women with space and support necessary for them to take effective steps towards achieving greater control of their lives. Hence, the benefits of SHGs, that have primarily been formed in India as micro-credit groups for economic empowerment of women and the weaker sections of the poor, thereby they can have access to large quantum of resources, provide a window for better technology and skill up gradation, have access to various promotional assistance and assurance of freedom, self-reliance and empowerment. In this direction the present study will find out how SHGs lead to empowering rural women.
Empowerment, Self Help Groups, Microfinance, Self-sustainability, and Development
