Profile of tribal women self help group members of Bankura district of West Bengal

A study was conducted in purposively selected Taldangra and Khatra block of Bankura district, West Bengal to investigate the socio-personal and socio-economic characteristics of tribal self-help group (SHG) members. Nine tribal SHGs from Taldangra block and nineteen tribal SHGs from Khatra block were selected randomly. So, the total number of twenty eight SHGs and total of two hundred and eighty respondents (10 members each of 28 SHGs) were selected by simple random sampling. An ex-post-facto research design was used to conduct the study systematically. Data were collected from the respondents through personal interview with the help of structured and pre-tested interview schedule. The findings of the study revealed that most of the members in the SHGs were middle aged women (64.29%). Majority of them (81.79%) were married and 56.43 percent were having nuclear family with 59.64 percent were having small family size (below 5 nos. of family members). A good number of respondents (24.64%) were having education upto middle level and most of them (27.50%) attended three number of training. Most of the members were engaged in agriculture with animal husbandry practices as their occupation, resides under tile/asbestos house (39.29%), covering annual income (72.50%) range from ₹17320.24 to 55612.62. A good number of tribal SHG members (21.79%) possessed backyard poultry followed by goat (20%), cow (17.86%), sheep (16.07%), duck (12.50%) and pig (10%). 70.71 per cent were having ponds up to 5 bigha. So, from the present study it has been depicted that the socio-economic upliftment were done mainly in the middle aged members under the tribal groups and concerted educational efforts are badly needed for betterment of their livelihood.