Abstract—Empowerment is a powerful word and should hold
the weight it carries. When we talk about ‘women
empowerment’, it seems to lose half of its weight as against
powerful lobby of men who are responsible to encourage it. The
Self help group or SHGs and the credit linkage scheme for it,
started as a pilot programme in 1992. In the last 23 years it has
not shown the results envisioned by the proposers. The intention
is good but the tool needs more sharpening. Merely economic
support is not enough to sustain such a model.
For women empowerment education is a pre-requisite to the
success of this model. By education, we mean knowledge
enhancement through school education, occupational and
management skills. Women by nature have managerial skills
which need to be harnessed. They have patience, vision and a
planning instinct better than men.
Through this study we discuss, a statistical understanding of
women empowerment in India and the Self Help Group (SHG)
credit and savings programme, being enforced to achieve it. As
a result, the need is felt for more Financial Institutions to join in
such initiatives.
Index Terms—Financial inclusion, SHG, SHG credit bank
linkage programme, women empowerment.
The author is with the 2nd largest Bank, India (e-mail:
succenasonjuhi@gmail.com).
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Cite: Sonjuhi Akhil Succena, "Empowerment of Women in Rural India through SHGs — A Step towards Financial Inclusion," International Journal of Trade, Economics and Finance vol.7, no.4, pp. 153-156, 2016.