INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE:

Group formation is the first step of interaction among the women. They have fewer ideas about the outside of the home due to less communication beyond the family. Generally women are busy in child care activities so their participation beyond familial activities related to outside the home is difficult for them. SHG playing important role to increase the participation of women in extra activities at different dimensions such as social, economic, political and others. These facts indicate that Self-Help Group works as a tool of women empowerment.

Empowerment can be viewed as a means of creating a social environment in which one can take decisions and make choices either individually or collectively for social transformation. It strengthens one's innate ability by way of acquiring knowledge power and experience. Empowerment is a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives, communities and in their society, by acting on issues that they define as important.

In India, the policies have failed to resolve the problem of women at different dimensions. Women have been the vulnerable section of society and constitute a large segment of the poverty-struck population.

Women face gender specific barriers to access education, health, empowerment etc. Thus the concept of Micro finance through SHG deals with women below the poverty line. Micro loans are available exclusively and fully to this target group of women. So, present paper tries to explore the empowerment of women through group functioning.

OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER:

· To know the functioning of the SHG.

· To analyzes the reasons of non repayment or late payment of the loans by the members in the group.

Study Area, Sample Selection and Methodology Used In the Study

This study has selected a ‘Hathiganha’ village of Allahabad district where number of women group functioning. The paper based on 20 randomly selected women from different SHGs functioning for the long time. The data collected from primary and secondary sources both. Primary data composed through observation and interview methods and secondary data collected through records of SHG and bank/block. Both sources of data helped to know the actual changes come in women life after formation of group.

Concept of Self-Help Group (SHG)

An SHG is a collection of 10-20 individuals, willingly created for a specific purpose. The group members use savings, credit and their participation and discussion as instruments of empowerment. It’s provides the credit to the needy members for consumption and investment purposes both. The primary purpose of the SHG is to facilitate the members to save and to free from the clutches of external sources like moneylenders.

The concept of self help groups gained significance, especially after 1976 when professor Mohammed Yunus of Bangladesh began experimenting with micro-credit and women SHGs. The strategy made a quiet revolution in Bangladesh in poverty eradication ‘by empowering the poor women’ (UNDP 1994). In India the concept of self help groups can be traced back to the Gandhian Grama Swaraj movement. It was mainly concerned with the poor and it was for the people and of the people.

Situation Analysis of the Sample Village

The village Hathiganha is located on Allahabad-Lucknow road and 23km away from Allahabad city. The village is connected by a pakki road to the Fafamau bazaar where vegetables are sold by the villagers to the middle men who transported to the nearby market of Allahabad. The village is settled on 311.9840 Hectares including agricultural land, aabadi, grazing, barren and naveen parti lands.

The total population of the village is 7800 comprising of 34.61 percent males, and 33.33 percent females, 16.79 percent boys and 15.25 percent girls. The gender ratio of the village is 948 per 1000 men. The literacy rate of the village is 67.66 percent in which male literacy rate is 65.56 percent and female literacy rate is 59.74 percent. Two religion communities i.e. Hindus and Muslims are inhabited in the village but Hindus are proportionally dominated (97%) in the village. The village is dominated by Mouryas (OBC) who constitutes 36 percent and yadavas (OBC) are constitute 16 percent of the total population followed by Brahman (9%), Rajpoot(7%), Baniya(7%), Chamar (8%), Pasi (9%) and remaining castes(8 %).

In terms of geographical location it is found that, the houses of mauryas are scattered on both side of the main road. Some of the houses of baniyas and yadavas are situated in the center where the mauraya’s residence. The hamlet of only Chamar and Pasi are segregated in the village and located in the outskirts, indicating that there is a geographical segregation among the castes of the village. It is also found that there are two types of houses in the village such as pakka and kaccha. Data of the pakka and kaccha homes shows that most of the pakka houses have been built by the upper castes and OBCs while the lower caste have kaccha houses. During raining some of the kaccha houses are covered by polythine.

Two seasonal crops are cultivated in the village, one is kharif like jovars, bajra and the other is Ravi like wheat, barley and grams. On the basis of occupation, the total population is categorized as follows- first is landholders who do not works on their land but lent out their holdings for sharecropping for which they receive at least a half share of the crop. It is found that Brahmans and Rajpoot are land holders. Second are the cultivators who cultivate the fields by themselves. On the other side, some Pasi and Chamar castes work as agricultural manual labour. Few SCs male has been engaged in running horse cart in which they transport vegetables from their village to the phaphamau market.

In terms of land holding it is found that maurya’s holds36% of the total agricultural lands, Yadavs21%, Brahmins 16%, Rajpoot 12% and remaining is hold by others such as SC and other castes. The main cultivation of the village is vegetable. Vegetables are produced mostly in the winter season. But in other season’s wheat, paddy and barley etc. are also produced. There are two schools in the village one is government primary school and other is private primary school. It has been found that the children of upper castes are admitted in the private school after paying fees of Rs. 50 and the children of lower castes are admitted in government school. But after SHGs, few lower castes children are send to private school which indicates the role of the SHGs in economic uplift of the lower castes in the village.

Functioning of the Self-Help Group

Group functioning in correct manner is very important part of the SHG for long time. For this purpose the members would maintain an accounting and documentation system in the SHG. The SHG will state the objectives and evolve its rules for functioning. Such rules will include savings, lending, group meetings, penalties for any unusual activities, election and rotation of leaders and duties of leaders and the members. The group will meet regularly, on specified dates/days, at the specified place and time. The meeting will be at a common venue or if need be, held at each member’s house, by rotation.

Each SHG will elect three representatives, to represent the group like president, treasurer and secretary. The SHG operations are based on democratic principles and participatory processes, which means decision making will be done with the participation of all and by majority opinion. The group will evolve proper checks and balances to ensure that the leaders are accountable to the group. The loans distribution among SHG members will be started as early as possible, based on the self-assurance and console level of the members and loan repayments collected during each meeting. The SHG functions on mutual trust, and based on the members’ need and ability to repay.

The group opens a savings account in a nearby bank branch. The leaders jointly operate the bank account. While the leaders withdraw the cash from the bank, members are expected to deposit the cash by rotation. Such a system will help familiarize the bank to the members and remove the hesitation among the women. These functioning processes make the women confident and assertive to talk the outsiders. So in this way SHG may be the panacea for the empowerment of the women.

Second objective of the paper is to know the reason of non repayment. Data reveals that members face problems to save money n the group some time. At the time of health crisis, economic crisis and festivals months like Holi, Diwali related months, women could not pay regularity money whatever they had taken from the group. They feel burden in that situation and some time they make pretend to attend the meetings of SHG. These facts indicate that women has been financially facilitated by the group and get the collectiveness of the women after formation of the SHG but some time when they feel helplessness to save the money in the group then group’s leader heartily supported for the strong bonding from the SHG that encourage the women to way of empowerment.

CONCLUSION:

It can be concluded that SHG has improved the status of women in the family as well as village. Their new identity has been introduced by the SHG. Earlier they were only housewife and know by their husbands but after formation of SHG they get new identity as a member. They feel proud on their self. This is big achievement of the SHG organization due to help of all family members. It is also reveals from the study that most of the SHG women have been involved in economic activities and get micro savings by their own names. They get awareness through the interaction and communication by the meetings of SHG. Their active participation in economic activities make them able to take decision in the family and group functioning generated the leadership qualities among the women that is the sign of women empowerment.

REFERENCES:

1. Tiyas Biswas (2008). ‘Women Empowerment through Micro Finance: A Boon for Development, Social welfare Vol. 55 No.8.

2. Dr. K. Lalitha (2007). ‘Thesis subtitled to Acharya Nagarjuna University, "Empowerment of women with special Reference to DWCRA Programme in Guntur Dt.

3. Safilios-Rothschild, C. (1970) ‘The Study of Family Power Structure: A Review 1960–1969’, Journal of Marriage and the Family 32(94): 539–52.

4. Yunus, M. (2002). ‘Grameen Bank II: Designed to Open New Possibilities? Originally published in Grameen Dialogue, Grameen Bank, Mirpur Dhaka, Bangladesh.

5. Shrestha, S.M. (2003). “Microfinance in Nepal” Paper presented “Attacking poverty with microcredit” held January 8-9, PKSF Bhavan, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

6. Shrestha, S.M. (2005). “Why Interest rate of MFI is high than the other commercial banks?” Microfinance Bulletin, RMDC, Kathmandu.

7. Narayan, D. (2002). ‘Empowerment and Poverty Reduction: A Sourcebook. Washington DC: World Bank.

8. Bora, P. and Talukdar R.K. (2012). ‘Functioning and Sustainability of Women Self Help Groups of Assam: An Analysis Based On Credit System and Income Generation Indian Res.J.Ext.Edu.12(2),May.

Received on 07.12.2015 Modified on 18.12.2015

Int. J. Ad. Social Sciences 3(4): Oct. - Dec., 2015; Page 166-168