Impact of dairy SHGs on livelihood of women dairy entrepreneurs of Mahila Grameen Hastkala Welfare Society of Kathua

Agriculture and animal husbandry are two main pillars of Indian agriculture on which entire structure of village life rests. They are twin occupation which from time immemorial has played a significant role in improving the rural economy. Dairying in India is a female dominated enterprise. It is established that women participated in dairy and animal husbandry activities in addition to their daily household chores, as they spent more time than men in dairy production activities. “A self help group (SHG) is a small economically homogenous affinity group of rural poor generally not exceeding 20 members voluntarily coming together. To find out the impact of dairy SHGs on the livelihood of women dairy entrepreneurs, a study entitled “Impact Evaluation of Women Dairy Self Help Groups of Mahila Grameen Hastkala Welfare Society of Kathua District” was undertaken. Based on the feasibility, quasi-experimental static group comparison research design was employed for the study. Out of the 600 established SHGs of the NGO, 50 dairy SHGs were selected purposively and further out of 50 selected dairy SHGs, 8 SHGs were selected randomly. All the members of these 8 SHGs were taken as respondent which raised the sample size from SHGs to 92There was a significant difference between SHGs and non SHGs members regarding sale of milk, value addition and average annual dairy income (sale of milk+value addition) with a difference of Rs.10,643, Rs. 1,578 and Rs. 12,221, respectively. Major source of loan for SHG members was their respective groups while non-SHG members were dependent upon neighbors (71 %), relatives (85 %), bank (86 %) and money lenders (59 %) for fulfilling their need of loan. The study also revealed that there was a significant difference in the uptake of improved dairy management practices.