Self Help Groups
Rural development is one of the main pillars of progress of India. It has lagged behind in many aspects of development even after six decades of the independence of India. According to 2011 population census, rural and urban India accounts for 33.8 per cent and 20.09 per cent of people below the poverty line respectively. Self Help Group has emerged as a new model for combating poverty.
This concept mainly
demonstrates the significance of togetherness. The Self Help Group represents
an association of people formed to attain certain common goals.
Self Help Groupis a small informal voluntary
association created for the purpose of enabling members to reap economic
benefit out of mutual help, solidarity, and joint responsibility. The benefits
include mobilization of savings and credit facilities for the pursuit of group
enterprise activity.
National Bank for Agricultural &
Rural Development (NABARD) has
defined Self Help Group as “a homogenous group of rural poor voluntarily
formed to save whatever amount they can conveniently save out of their earnings
and mutually agree to contribute to a common fund of the group to be lent to
the members for meeting their productive and emergent credit needs”
Following are the objectives of Self
Help Groups
1.
Focusing on empowerment of women.
2.
Saving people from the clutches of money
lenders
3.
Building capacity of women and to enable
them to participate in generating activities.
4.
Creating the habit of saving in the
minds of the people who are economically backward.
5.
Promoting entrepreneurship skills among
women.
6.
Creating awareness aboutthe importance
of credit circle or revolving credit and the payment of the circle.
7.
Elevating the economic standard of the
member’s families.
8.
Developing skills and facilitating
credit linkages for eventual economic empowerment.
9.
Promoting awareness among the members
about finding solutions for their economic problems.
10.
Identifying the common interest of the
group members and carrying out their operations in the most efficient and
economic way.
11.
Enabling the members to overcome all
social and economic barriers.
12.
Promising and ensuring human rights to
women at all stages of their life cycle.
1.
The motto of every group members should
be “saving first – credit latter”
2.
Self Help Group is homogeneous in terms
of economic status.
3.
The ideal size of a Self Help Group
ranges between 10 and 20 members.
4.
The groups need not be registered.
5.
Groups are non-political, voluntary
associations and follow a democratic culture.
6.
Each group should have only one member
from one single family.
7.
A group is to be formed with only men or
only with women.
8. Self Help Group holds weekly meetings mostly during non-working hours, and full attendance is made mandatory for better participation.
9.
The groups have transparency among
themselves and they have collective accountability in respect of financial
transactions.
10.
Every group provides a platform to its
members for exchange of their views and ideas freely.
The Functions of Self Help Groups are
listed below.
1.
Developing and enhancing the decision
making capacity of members.
2.
Increasing general awareness on literacy
among members.
3.
Equipping the poor with basic skills for
understanding monetary transactions.
4.
Maintaining books and registers to ensure
proper accounts.
5.
Providing necessary training in the
chosen field.
6.
Submitting the accounts for annual audit
by a qualified auditor.
7.
Deciding the loan amount to be
sanctioned to the group members.
There are three distinct modes of credit
to SHGs. Under the first mode, banks lend directly to the SHGs. In the second
mode, banks provide loans to the NGOs for onward lending to the SHGs and
ultimately to micro entrepreneurs. Under the third mode, banks extend credit to
the SHGs with the NGOs serving as facilitators. Out of these three methods, the
last method of direct lending by bank with NGOs facilitation is widely
practised.
In December 2017 there were 45,67,090
SHGs in India. The total number of members in SHGs during the same period stood
at 5,02,65,933 at all India level.
The five year plans of the government of
India has given due recognition to the relevance of the Self-help group concept
to implement developmental schemes at the grassroots level.
In Tamil Nadu, Tamil Nadu Corporation
for Development of Women Limited (TNCDW) was established in the year 1983 with
the prime objective of socio economic development and empowerment of rural
women. The Government of Tamil Nadu spearheaded the Self Help Group concept in
the country by forming SHGs in Dharmapuri district with the assistance of
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in September 1989. The
success of the IFAD project paved way for the now popularly called “Mahalir Thittam”
project, which was launched during 1997-98 with the State Government funding
and was progressively extended to all the 30 districts. The SHG movement has
now emerged as a powerful and vibrant movement illuminating the lives of many
poor women in the state.
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