Micro-finance a tool for women empowerment: An empirical study of northern India

The most crucial factor conscientious for socio economic development is the women empowerment. The role of Industry of Microfinance has always been very vital in bringing a affirmative change in the economic position of women and magically improves the life of women which will have a spill over effect on her family and the society as a whole. Microfinance practitioners have long realized the importance of appropriate products, policies, and incentives for clients. Proper incentives and mechanisms also need to be devised to ensure optimal performance of the employees of microfinance institutions (MFIs). The objective of the present paper is to gauge this issue empirically, targeting majorly Northern area, to study the impact of microfinance in empowering the social economic status of women and developing of social entrepreneurship, to know about relationship between SHGs members, microfinance banks of North India and entrepreneur women, to clarify the limitations of microfinance programmes as the tool for women's empowerment and the type of support service necessary to maximise the contribution of microfinance service. Descriptive design is used to achieve the objective of the study.