Empowerment of women through self help groups a case study of Puri district of Odisha

Abstract

Self-Help-Groups (SHGS) have facilitated the process of micro- credit newlinefor the rural women folk thus improving their bargaining role in day to day newlinedecision making of the household and finally in the community. SHGs organize the newlinepoor and the marginalized and this help them to join hand to solve their problems newlineand the method has been very successfully used by the government and the nongovernment newlineorganizations in achieving several developmental goals. Indian newlinepopulation is more than 1.3 billion and in its rural areas more than half of the newlinepeople live below the poverty line. Hence, the ideology of the SHGs bears newlineenormous importance and it offers them an opportunity to get rid of the vicious newlinecycles of rural poverty. A number of impact studies have been made with regard to the newlinefunctioning of the SHGS in different parts of India. These studies point out that low newlinefinancial investment through SHGS can ensure large economic benefits in return newlineand also, according to their findings SHGS expand horizines of livelihood newlineopportunities for rural poor. At the same time, these repots point out the major newlineweaknesses in working of the SHG. Besides these studies reveal the major newlinechallenges faced by the SHGs. In Odisha a number of impact studies have been newlinemade on the working of SHGS. However, an adequate number of in-depth studies newlinehave not been made with regard to the functioning of the SHGS.In the present newlinestudy titled Empowerment of Women through Self Help Groups: A Case Study of newlinePuri District of Odisha an analysis of SHGs functioning in Puri district has been made. newline