SELF HELP GROUPS

BY
N.MANOJ KUMAR
 DEFINITION
• SHG is group of rural poor who have
volunteered to organize themselves into a group
for eradication of poverty of the members.
• They agree to save regularly and convert their
savings into a Common Fund known as the
Group corpus(collection of written works).
• The members of the group agree to use this
common fund and such other funds that they
may receive as a group through a common
management
 Origin
• The origin of SHGs is from the brainchild of
Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, which was
founded by Mohammed Yunus.  SHGs were
started and formed in 1975.  In India NABARD
is initiated in 1986-87.  But the real effort was
taken after 1991-92 from the linkage of SHGs
with the banks. 
 CONCEPT

• Small voluntary association of people

• From the same socio-economic background

• With a purpose of solving their common

problems through self-help and mutual help

• Major activities: saving & credit activities

 SGH CAPACITY
• Generally a self-help group may consist of 10 to 20 persons.
• in difficult areas like deserts, hills and areas with scattered
and sparse population and in case of minor irrigation and
disabled persons, this number may be from 5-20.
• Generally all members of the group should belong to
families below the poverty line.
• People from APL and BPL are also work together in some
cases.
• APL are group leader ,treasurer etc and BPL are workers,
labors.
 GROUP WORKS AND FUNCTIONS
• The group should devise a code of conduct (Group management norms)
to bind itself.
• This should be in the form of regular meetings (weekly or fortnightly),
functioning in a democratic manner, allowing free exchange of views,
participation by the members in the decision making process.
• The group should be able to draw up an agenda for each meeting and
take up discussions as per the agenda.
• The members should build their corpus through regular savings.

• The group should be able to collect the minimum voluntary saving

amount from all the members regularly in the group meetings. The
savings so collected will be the group corpus fund.
• The group should develop financial management norms covering
the loan sanction procedure, repayment schedule and interest
rates.
• The members in the group meetings should take all the loaning
decisions through a participatory decision making process.
• The group should operate a group account preferably in their
service area bank branch, so as to deposit the balance amounts
left with the groups after disbursing loans to its members.
• The group should maintain simple basic records such as Minutes
book, Attendance register, Loan ledger, General ledger, Cash
book, Bank passbook and individual passbooks.
 GOVERNMENT POLICY
Apart from other activities focusing on women’s empowerment, health and
educational attainment.
• Increased participation of women in SHGs and saving & credit activities will
empower women economically.

Economic empowerment will –

• empower women’s status in family & in the community
• help women to access and utilize better health services &facilities
• contribute towards improving women’s health & empowerment
• help in achieving ‘Millennium Development Goals’ in developing countries.
 Women Empowerment Through Self Help
Groups:
A Case Study in the North Tamil Nadu
Objectives
The overall objective of the present study is to
analysis the economic empowerment of
women through SHGs in the north districts of
Tamil Nadu.  However more specifically:
1. To study the income, expenditure and savings
of the members after joining SHGs.
2.  To know the role of SHGs in providing rural
credit.
 Reasons for Joining SHGs
• The major aim of the SHGs is to promote savings and to credit for the
productive and consumption purposes. 
• This is true because many people in the study area joins the SHGs for
getting loan and promote their personal savings, in addition to get social
status
• In the study area many people (43.28%) joins the SHGs for getting
financial assistance, 32.84% of the respondents joins the SHGs for the
social status, because SHGs give the identify to the members. 
• 14.92% of the respondents join for improving their savings.   For social,
cultural and political improvement (other reasons 8.96%) some
members join in the SHGs.
Income level
 Conclusion
• The study was undertaken the women
empowerment through SHGs in the north Tamil
Nadu. 
• It is found that the income of the women has
been increased after joining the SHGs.  So that
the monthly household expenditure also has
been raised considerable level. 
• But the savings is increasing at slow rate, because
the incremental expenditure is higher.  Mostly
they are spending for present consumption.  The
members should change it.  The good practice of
the women SHGs in the study area is repayment
of the loan in time.