Role of Self Help Group - Bank Linkage Model in Women Empowerment

Microfinance as a tool has been a gradual and evolutionary growth opportunity to people from rural India resulting into better living standard and quality of life for women. In India, micro finance scene is dominated by Self Help Groups (SHGs) - Bank Linkage Programme. Its purpose is to provide a cost effective mechanism for providing financial services to the “unreached poor”. The Government of India made linking the Self Help Groups (SHGs) with banks a national priority from 1999 and Nabard continues to nurture the expansion of the outreach of the programme by providing umbrella support to various stakeholders. Women in India are seriously constrained by gender inequalities in respect of education, financial resources, lack of time due to domestic responsibilities and low chances of mobility. Some studies related to impact of microfinance reveals that women's access to and control over their savings, credit and income have improved. Also, women have improved freedom to move and interact with the officials and other women. It is crucial for the success of SHGs to have strong support of a fully mature group that achieves competence to independently handle issues of its internal practices both financial and non- financial. Groups formed without professional inputs and without the requisite handholding cannot sustain the financial content model and can lead to an increase in defaults and consequent abuses in the system. Record keeping in the groups is another challenge. The paper studies the status, progress and trends of Self-help Groups (SHGs) linkage with banks in India. The objective is to study the role of micro credit and its performance as a tool for women empowerment. The study is based on secondary data and the sources include reports and studies of various agencies, organizations, newspaper articles, journals and books.