The Role of Self Help Groups in Alleviating Poverty in India-An Appraisal

Today, Self help groups (SHGs) are playing a major role in economic development as well as poverty alleviation in India. Majority of the poor and marginalized are building their lives, families and society through the interventions of SHGs. A growing number of poor people (mostly women) in various parts of the country are members of SHGs and they are actively engaging in SHGs activities like savings, income generation, standard of living and making of self reliance through self employment. Further, even after more than 62 years of planning, various poverty alleviation programmes, the official estimates shows that around 1/4^th of total population still lives in below the poverty line in India. The financial requirement is one of the basic needs of the poor people of the society for their socio-economic upliftment (Sundaram, A 2012). Hence, the growth of SHGs has been playing a dominant role in poverty reduction through providing financial support to the poor people especially in developing countries like India. In this direction, the present paper has been made a modest attempt to analyse the growth and trends in SHGs and the impact of SHGs on the poverty alleviation in India over a period of time (2001–2012). There are so many empirical studies have been done pertaining to the SHGs and other aspects but the studies relating to the impact of SHGs on poverty alleviation especially in India are very scanty. So, to fulfil this gap the present study has been undertaken.