Restoration Of Ecosystem

“Women empowerment for biodiversity conservation

ThroughThe eye of SHGs-Impact on Indian Economy”

NAME: DEBJYOTI BARMAN

COLLEGE: INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT (IEM)
DEPARTMENT: MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (MBA)
YEAR: 1st year
Abstract:
Ecological restoration is undertaken for many reasons including to
recover ecosystem integrity and to satisfy personal, cultural, social-economic,
and ecological values. This combination of ecological and social benefits can
lead to improved social–ecological resilience.Restoration activities focus on
reinstating components and conditions suitable for these processes to
recommence and support recovery of ecosystem attributes, including capacity
for self-organization and for ecosystem resilience to future stresses.On June
5th, 2021, World Environment Day, the UN will officially launch the UN Decade
on Ecosystem Restoration, which runs from 2021-2030.SHG is helping women
to stand on their own feet and to become one of the backbones of Indian
Economy.

Keywords:
women self-help groups,

Research Objective:To show the women empowerment and its impacts on

economydeveloping leadership abilities among the poor and the needy,
increasing school enrolment and improving nutrition and the use of birth
control.

Introduction:
A self-help group (SHG) is a financial intermediary committee usually
composed of 10 to 25 local women between the ages of 18 and 40. Most self-
help groups are in India, though they can be found in other countries,
especially in South Asia and Southeast Asia. An SHG is generally a group of
people who work on daily wages who form a loose grouping or union. Money
is collected from those who are able to donate and given to members in need.
Members may also make small regular savings contributions over a few
months until there is enough money in the group to begin lending. Funds may
then be lent back to the members or to others in the village for any purpose. In
India, many SHGs are linked with banks for the delivery of micro-credit.

Analysis:
The Genesis of SHG in India can be traced to formation of Self-Employed
Women’s Association (SEWA) in 1970.The SHG Bank Linkage Project launched
by NABARD in 1992 has blossomed into the world’s largest microfinance
project.NABARD along with RBI permitted SHGs to have a savings account in
banks from the year of 1993. This action gave a considerable boost to the
SHG movement and paved the way for the SHG-Bank linkage program. In
1999, Govt. of India introduced Swarn Jayanti Gram SwarozgarYojana(SGSY)
to promote self-employment in rural areas through formation and skilling Of
SHGs.
Members are usually women from similar social and economic backgrounds, all
voluntarily coming together to save small sums of money, on a regular
basis.Beyond their function as savings and credit groups, SHGs offer poor
women a platform for building solidarity. They allow women to come together
and act on issues related to their own lives including health, nutrition,
governance, and gender justice.
According to the NSSO data, 51.4% of the farmer households are not able to
have access to formal credit. This has led to many negative implications such as
poverty, farmer suicides Many in India are not able to obtain loans due to the
absence of collateral. SHGs can help solve this problem.

Opportunities
▪ SHGs often appear to be instrumental in rural poverty alleviation.
▪ Economic empowerment through SHGs, provides women the
confidence for participation in decision making affairs at the
household-level as well as at the community-level.
▪ Un-utilised and underutilised resources of the community can
be mobilised effectively under different SHG-initiatives.
▪ Leaders and members of successful SHGs bear the potentiality to
act as resource persons for different community developmental
initiatives.
 ▪ Active involvement in different SHG-initiatives helps members to
grow leadership-skills.

Weaknesses of SHGs:
o Members of a group do not come necessarily from the poorest
families.

o Though there has been social empowerment of the poor, the

economic gain to bring about a qualitative change in their life has
not been satisfactory.
o Many of the activities undertaken by the SHGs are still based on
primitive skills related mostly to primary sector enterprises.
o Poor accounting practices and incidents of misappropriation of
funds.
o Lack of resources and means to market their goods.
o SHGs are heavily dependent on their promoter NGOs and
government agencies. The withdrawal of support often leads to
their collapse.
Functions:
▪ It looks to build the functional capacity of the poor and the
marginalized in the field of employment and income
generating activities.
▪ It resolves conflicts through collective leadership and mutual
discussion.
▪ It provides collateral free loan with terms decided by the group at
the market driven rates.
▪ Such groups work as a collective guaranteed system for members
who propose to borrow from organised sources. The poor collect
their savings and save it in banks. In return they receive easy access
to loans with a small rate of interest to start their micro unit
enterprise.
▪ Consequently, Self-Help Groups have emerged as the most effective
mechanism for delivery of microfinance services to the poor.

Advantages of SHGs:
• Being a part of this group,an economically poor individual gains
strength.
• SHGs have helped immensely in reducing the influence of informal
lenders in rural areas.
• Many big corporate houses are also promoting SHGs at many places
in India.
• Now-a-days, SHG are also impacting the ecosystem by planting trees
at their nursery.
• They are also making handicrafts with biodegradable products and
selling them they are earning money.
Case studies:
▪ MahilaArthik Vikas Mahamandal (MAVIM) in Maharashtra
o SHGs in Maharashtra were unable to cope
with growing volume and financial transactions and
needed professional help. Community managed
resource centre (CMRC) under MAVIM was launched to
provide financial and livelihood services to SHGs. CMRC
is self-sustaining and provides need-based services.
Recommendation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-help_group_(finance)
https://www.google.com/search?q=self+help+groups+diagram&sxsrf=ALeKk01
iQ2XvgonDUjvaiGzLLx67v1qTw:1622366656315&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X
&ved=2ahUKEwiztvrhivHwAhX-
qksFHVLIAzkQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1366&bih=568

Conclusion:
HGs are one of the supportive instruments for the women which helps to
development of women in society. It increases the power of women and to
become independent with having multiple opportunities. The SHGs developing
the Indian economy indirectly. It is decreasing the poverty line and helping to
people to increase their economic status. The overall development is possible
from the SHGs.