Poverty is omnipresent but the third world countries are the main sufferers. Even after more than 50 years of planning and employing various poverty alleviation programmes, official estimates shows that 26.1 per cent of total population lives below poverty line in India. Since, independence government has taken several initiatives to tackle the scarce of poverty through area development approach, sectoral approach. But all the initiatives failed to achieve the target due to faulty planning and improper implementation and lack of will. Formal banking sector also ignored the poor due to risk involved in lending to poor as they do not have collaterals and apprehension of non-bankability. Against this backdrop SHG bank linkage from NABARD is considered as best alternative to reach the poor. The provision of small and regular repayment schedule made possible very high recovery rate. After 1990s microfinance has taken it momentum and now it is the largest microfinance movement in the world.
