A study on micro financial services provided by A MFI-NGO -A case study of Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project, Dharmasthala, Mangalore

Micro finance is an innovative tool of finance. It is now one of the great success stories in the developing world. The concept of micro finance originally popularized by great economist and Nobel Peace laureate Dr. Mohammad Yunus of Bangladesh. Today it has spread into many countries of the world and working tremendously in India. We have many micro finance institutions in India and majority of them concentrated in rural areas.

Micro finance is not just lending small amount of money to the poor. It entails many other financial and non financial services which are not yet touched y many MFI/NGO's. So this particular research article evaluates the micro financial and non financial services provided by one of the prestigious MFI/NGO of the south named Shri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project. The study is particularly related to SKDRDP therefore the data is mainly collected from the primary source.

The entire study evaluates various services rendered by SKDRDP. It was found that almost all SHG members have become beneficiary of these services and all feel that the various programmes have helped them to overcome the extreme poverty and could improve their life styles. Thus all MFI's should become aware of the various financial and non financial services and must try at their foot to provide these services to the poor.