Impact of micro finance through self help groups on socio economic conditions of rural poor in Punjab

Abstract

An attempt has been made to carefully analyze and compare the pattern of ownership of assets, income and employment, pattern of consumption and extent of poverty, pattern of saving and extent of indebtedness among beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries of programme. The study is conducted in rural areas of Punjab state. For the purpose of collecting primary data, a multistage random sampling method is used. To meet the objectives of the present empirical work, the extent of absolute poverty has been estimated with the help of state specific poverty lines using the Tendulkar methodology given by the planning commission and poverty line of Punjab has been updated with the help of Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourer (C P I A L) in the State of Punjab for the year 2011-12 and 2012-2013. The extent of absolute poverty has been analysed by estimating the number and percentage of poor among beneficiary and non-beneficiary households and making their comparative analysis. The pattern of household assets has been evaluated by taking into account per household average value of productive and other assets. To ascertain the impact of Self-help group (Microfinance) on the assets, income, employment and consumption expenditure of selected households, Z-test is used by applying case-control approach. Various socio economic and demographic indicators of the study have been analysed in terms of age and sex wise family composition of the households, average family size, percentage of family workforce, percentage of dependents, per household per day available standard man-days, literacy percentage, marital status, caste, housing and civic amenities among the sample households. newline