Empowerment of women through shgs in India

Empowerment refers to the well being of a person which reflects on the freedom to lead different types of life showing the person's capability. Empowerment of women has emerged as an important tool to measure the progress of the country. Thus, this concept has gained paramount importance to political thinkers, social scientists and reformers. Empowerment is seen as a process by which power to control over their lives will be increasing. This involves ability to get what one wants and to influence others on our concerns. Economic Empowerment results in the women's ability to influence or take decision, increased self-confidence, better status and role in household etc. In India, Microfinance has emerged as a powerful instrument with the SHG-Bank Linkage Program for the upliftment of women.

The Self Help Groups (SHGs) have paved the way for economic independence of rural women. This was the most cost-effective instrument to meet the financial needs of the poor women and also helped in strengthening collective self help capacities of women, leading to their empowerment. The rapid progress of SHG formation in India has turned into an empowerment movement of women across the country. This paper puts forward how the formation and development of SHGs received a greater focus in the empowerment of women in India. This paper seeks to focus on the growth of number of SHGs, and its impact on various aspects of empowerment of women. This paper also puts efforts to suggest certain measures to enhance the empowerment of women.