Empowering Dalit Women Through SHGs: A Study in Rural Community of Southern Odisha

In our country, Poverty and unemployment are the two major problems for not achieving the desired development. In rural India, the rate of growth of women employment is 9.8% as indicated by the Statistical survey of India – 2011. This is the result of the growth of new and productive employment in the last few years in our country. At present it is important to empower women through regularity in savings and income generation programmes. This may also help to reduce poverty. SHG has emerged as a successful programme through informal credit system targeting rural women's social and economic enhancement, acts as an ideal mechanism in mobilizing women talent, energy and teach them to earn their own living. In this background, the present study tries to make an attempt how SHGs help to empower women both at the family level as well as at the community level in a rural Dalit community of Odisha. The study has been conducted in a Bauri(a Dalit community) village named as Parvatipur in the Ganjam district of southern Odisha.