Monetory and Non-Monetory Benefits Derived by the Rural Women from the Income Generating activities of Self-Help Groups run by DWCD and NGOS in Jaipur District of Rajasthan

Income generating activities are considered as those initiatives that affect the economic aspects of people's lives through the use of economic tools such as credit. The self-help group provides an appropriate platform for initiating and sustaining income generating activities. Self-help Groups have emerged as one of the major strategies for women's empowerment and various schemes of the Government of India have shown that strong women's groups could contribute substantially to the development and convergence of services and activities. To measure the Monetory and Non-monetory benefits, schedules were developed by the investigator in line of the suggestions of the experts. It was found that 91.67 per cent of the rural women involved in the income generating activities of Self-Help Groups had low incremental income (less than 43.15%). The rural women involved in the income generating activities of SHGs were getting higher benefits in terms of ‘increasing their communication skill’. SHGs have been able to empower women not only economically but also in other facets of their life like courage, will power and determination. This highlights the need for initiation of more SHGs and promotion of IGAs in every village of the country for the overall development of women.