Women Empowerment through Self Help Groups in HP: An Analysis

By : Shyam L. Kaushal , Nivedita Sharma

Page No: 125-136

Abstract
Women empowerment is a buzzword around the globe including India. Here, many initiatives are taken for this purpose and among those, Self Help Groups (SHGs) have emerged as one of the important options. Basically, empowerment refers to social and political succession that is dependent on economic empowerment. It consists of income and livelihood on one side, and freedom to spend income and control over resources on the other. Review of literature witnessed that education, access to resources, nutritional food, health care facilities, decision-making power and selfemployment are the basic tenets and the Self Help Group movement paved the way to empower women in India. Further, the studies show direct relationship between growth of SHGs and women empowerment. But women empowerment in a patriarchal society remains a critical challenge in reality, and time to time attracts academicians and policy makers to debate the issue. The present paper is an endeavour to study the women empowerment through SHGs by examining its growth pattern in HP. The data and information were collected from primary and secondary sources like books, magazines, journals, newspapers, websites and MIS/offices circulars etc. The collected data was analysed with suitable statistical tools. From the data analysis, it is concluded that SHGs are spreading throughout the country including HP but their formation and growth prototype is uneven. However, upward trend clearly hint that SHGs are helping significantly in financial inclusion of poor women. In consequence to their association with SHG movement, women have started saving small amounts of money for their future needs, linked themselves with formal banking system and availed micro credit on easy terms. Thus, it demonstrates that SHGs are not only solving their routine problems but also improving their decision-making and risk-taking habits. However, its growth pattern was not same in all areas in the country. In the same vein, in Himachal Pradesh where 33 per cent SHGs were formed in two districts of the state could be a pointer to prevalent irritants and bottlenecks in other regions. However, the fact is that need-based training capsules and access to economic resources at affordable rates motivate women to start new economic units collectively under the ownership of SHGs, which improved their confidence levels, moral strengths, leadership qualities, managerial and entrepreneurial skills and decision-making skills. Yet, a need has been felt to educate women about government policies, training programmes, banking system and interest rates for attaining real objectives of SHGs and consequently achieving the cherished goal of women empowerment in reality. But from the analysis, it can be concluded that women have diversified their sources of income by looking beyond agricultural activities and became financially independent on one side, and paved way to their social and political advancement.

Authors :
Shyam L. Kaushal : Dean, Faculty of Commerce, Management & Tourism, Professor, Himachal Pradesh University of Business School, Himachal Pradesh University, Summer Hill, Shimla - 171005, Himachal Pradesh. (India)
Nivedita Sharma : Research Scholar, Himachal Pradesh University of Business School, Shimla - 171005, Himachal Pradesh. (India)
 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32381/PROD.2020.61.02.2