INTRODUCTION:

Socio-economic development through the group approach has been an acceptable, successful and popular approach in the present-day world. That’s why empowering the Self-help Groups (SHGs) has been an approach towards socio-economic development and poverty alleviation both in the urban and rural areas in India and many developing countries of the world.

The issues relating to the socio-economic development and poverty alleviation have been receiving attention of urban planners, policy makers, implementing agencies, research institutions at national and international levels.

A sharp difference in the incomes of people and their distribution in urban centers has been leading to a small and increasingly wealthy group separating both socially and even physically from the poorer sections.¹

The issue of poverty has been the focus of development initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region since the end of the colonial era during 1940s-1950s. But the issue of urban poverty has gained significance only in 1970s-1980s. In the development literature, two basic types of poverty are coined: absolute poverty and relative poverty. The World Bank treats people earning less than US$ 1 a day to be absolutely poor.² The corresponding international poverty line was upped to $1.25 in 2015. Again in 2011, the international poverty line was raised to $1.90 a day, but the global poverty remains basically unchanged.³

India has the poverty of 21% of population, per capita income $1352.3 and Human Development Index (HDI) 0.586. India has registered a significant achievement on MDGs, with some targets having met earlier than the deadline of 2015. In 1990, 53.5% of all India children were malnourished, which declined to 40% in 2015 against the target of 26%. In respect of “MDG2 on achieving universal primary education, India has been moderately on track; Literacy rate at the national level in 2011 (15-24 years) has been 86.1%. On “MDG3 for promoting gender equality and empowering women” having achieved the gender parity in primary school enrolment, India appears to be on track in achieving gender parity at all educational levels, although women’s literacy rate is lower than that of men’s, indicating women’s poorer learning outcomes and opportunities. India has only 65 women representatives out of 542 Lok Sabha members and 32 in 242-member Rajya Sabha, representing only 12.24% by women in the National Parliament against the target of 50%. On “MDG4 for reduction of child mortality”, India is moderately on track as India’s under Five Mortality declined from 125 in 1990 to 49 in 2013 per 1000 live births against the target of 42, whereas infant mortality rate (below 1 year) is 40 per 1000 in 2013, indicating thereby a key challenge. In respect of “Goal5:Improve Maternal Health”, India’s progress has been slow and off track, since Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) declined to 167 per 100000 live births in 2009 from 437 per 100000 live births in 1990-91 against the target of 109 by 2015. For safe motherhood, institutional facilities with trained personnel and Janani Suraksha Yojana has improved delivery of babies in hospitals and nursing homes. As for “Goal6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other Diseases”, India is on track to achieving this goal as HIV, malaria and TB prevalence has been declining. Adult prevalence rate of HIV and AIDS in India has come down from 0.45% in 2002 to 0.27% in 2011. Percentage of population aged 15-24 years with comprehensive correct knowledge of HIV/AIDS in 2006 was 32.9%. In regard to “Goal7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability”, India has made some progress and is on track. Forest cover has increased to 21.23%.⁴

In India, the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1985-90) recognized the economic problems of the urban poor for the first time. The Eighth Five-Year Plan (1992-97) attempted to involve people in the process of development by the adoption of institutional approach through involvement of voluntary agencies for effective micro-level participatory planning. Poverty eradication was one of the major objectives of the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1997-2002).⁵

Concept and Evolution of SHGsand brief aboutimplementation of Self-employment Programmes in urban India:

When people of homogeneous socio-economic background form groups with certain objectives and act according to a set of norms for helping one another, these groups are normally known as SHGs. Women SHGs are the main instruments for poor women’s entitlements and empowerment through the socio-economic development, inculcating leadership, increase of school enrolments of their children, nutrition, birth control etc. Financial intermediation or improvement is generally perceived more as an entry point goal than other goals.⁶

With the objective to reduce poverty and unemployment problems, the Government of India launched different programmes both for the urban and rural areas from time to time- Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) in 1997 for the urban unemployed youths and National Urban Livelihoods Mission (NULM) on 24.09.2013 replacing the SJSRY, organizing urban poor in SHGs, creating opportunities for skill development leading to market-based employment and helping them to set up self-employment ventures by ensuring easy access to credit. SHGs, according to the guidelines of NULM, are groups of 10 to 20 women or men who come together, conduct regular meetings where the savings of the group are collected into a corpus which is used to provide short-term loans internally to the members and after some time they may approach a bank for loans. Apart from receiving benefits under the NULM and other schemes of the Government, SHGs build leadership skills of members so that they can manage the group in rotation.⁷

Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY) launched earlier and now DAY-NULM are the major urban poverty alleviation programmes launched by the Government of India emphasizing on the formation of SHGs and for the socio-economic development of the women in particular and bringing about other awareness and women empowerment. Grameen Bank Model of Bangladesh, SEWA and Mahila Milan in India have shown success in the socio-economic development of women including women empowerment.

The Government has put in place policies and programmes to alleviate urban poverty. Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) are the facilitators to reduce poverty in their respective areas. Although many of the issues are common, yet these vary among metros, big cities, medium and small towns in India. ULBs have their own strategies for reducing poverty, but small and medium towns in India often suffer from resource crunch and may not have proper direction towards this end. Most of the cities in India have a large segment of urban population with presence of high birth and death rates resulting in lower economic productivity and standard of living, hunger, mal-nutrition with poverty, crimes and aggravated environmental condition. To improve the quality of life, millions of rupees have been spent in India since independence, yet urban facilities provided are grossly inadequate.⁸

Historical, Cultural, Demographic Background, Urban Administration and Socio-economic Scenario in Tripura:

Tripura, a hilly land–locked State, located in the North-Eastern Region of India, known for its tradition of composite culture of tribal, non-tribal and multi-religion, has a rich heritage and long history of peaceful coexistence and communal harmony. Having a total geographical area of 10491.69 sq. km. and population of 3673,917 (Census of India 2011), it has now 8 Districts, 23 Sub-Divisions, 58 Rural Development Blocks and 20 ULBs. The Municipal Administration, established in 1874, has gradually been extended to other small towns. Due to reorganization of ULBs several times, many rural areas have now become parts of urban areas, which are mostly inhabited by the urban poor and where there is poor accessibility to urban resources and facilities compared to other parts of the ULBs.⁹ The State Government has been successfully implementing many rural and urban government self-employment programmes including DAY-NULM. As on 11.01.2016 SHGs formed in all 20 ULBs of Tripura under DAY-NULM are 1616, out of which 785 are in Agartala Municipal Council (AMC) and 110 in Dharmanagar Municipal Council (MC).¹⁰ The State Government has taken certain steps for increasing women participation in programme implementation.

Economy of Tripura is agrarian and characterized by high rate of poverty, low per-capita income, low capital formation, inadequate infrastructural facilities, geographical isolation, communication bottleneck, inadequate exploitation and use of forest, natural rubber and mineral resources, slow progress in industrial field and high un-employment problem. More than 42% of its population now directly depends on agriculture and allied activities. The contribution of primary sector has increased to 33% in 2014-15. The GSDP at current prices with 2011-12 base stands at Rs.29,666.62 crore and the per capita income has risen to Rs.71666 in 2014-15. Low availability of infrastructure has made the process of economic development and industrialization extremely difficult in the State. The un-organized manufacturing and service activities are dominant. However, despite several bottlenecks, the overall performance of the State’s real economy is impressive. The upliftment of the poor and improvement in the quality of life of the economically weaker sections of the society have been objectives of development planning and policy decisions of the State. The un-employment situation in the State has assumed alarming position as the total job seekers have increased to 662,756 as on March 2015. The literacy and education and vital rates are reasonably good indicators of development in a society. The literacy rate of Tripura as per India Census data 2011 was 87.22 percent for the population group consisting 7 years and above with males and females being 91.5 percent and 82.7 percent respectively, Tripura being ranked third among the States after Kerala and Mizoram in India. The recent study conducted by the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata assessed the literacy rate of Tripura at 95.16 percent in 2013. The latest Sample Registration Survey of Registrar General of India for 2014 reveals that the birth rate in Tripura is 14.9, being lower than all India figure of 21.0 and the death rate of the population is 4.7 again lower than the all India rate of 6.7; the infant mortality rate posted at 21 in the State is also lower than the national figure of 39. MMR is 4 in Tripura against the All India average of 4.37 and the sex ratio of Tripura is 960 against 943, all India average. Thus, evidently State’s birth rate, death rate, infant mortality rate and MMR are better than that of the national standard.¹¹

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

As the Urban Poverty alleviation programme is in place for a long time, there has been some improvement towards employment front through both group and individual approach due to the implementation of the various Government programmes. This has impacted on educational uplift, awareness on health and hygiene, environmental awareness and women empowerment apart from urban housing, employment, sanitation, entrepreneurship and skill development through economic activities. The present study aims at impact study of social development through on the non-economic parameters in the urban areas of the State of Tripura through SHG approach. Broadly, the following are the objectives of the study:

• Analyzing Educational Upliftment of SHG Members and their family members as an impact of SHG activities.

• Analysis of Impact on Health and Environmental awareness- infectious diseases, AIDs, adoption of family planning method, availing of immunization, institutional child birth, reduction of child mortality, health checks ups etc. due to SHG participation.

• Analysis as to how far Women empowerment has taken place in urban areas of Tripura through SHG approach.

• Findings of the Study.

• Recommendations for future course of actions.

METHODS:

The paper relates to urban areas of Tripura for which 14 ULBs out of 20 have been selected from all the eight districts depending upon the size and population of each district.

Data Collection:

Survey through structured schedules has been conducted for collection of requisite information through the direct face-to-face interview, focus group discussion and observations in the field. This paper is mainly based on the primary data collection, although the secondary data have been collected from the ULBs and the Directorate of the Urban Development Department (UDD), Government of Tripura and publications and internet sourcing.

Sample Size:

The sample size of the study is 353 SHGs from the fourteen ULBs of Tripura. On an average 3 respondents represented an SHG and out of 4099 members 1050 respondents represented for the whole lot, which is 25.6% of the total members. About 98.1% of the SHG members are females. The SHGs have been randomly chosen for the interview. The data collection refers to the pre-NULM period.

Techniques of Data Analysis:

The information collected from the above sources has been processed with the help of simple statistical tools for arriving at inferences to meet the objectives of the study. Graphs, Figures and Tables have also been used to represent data analysis.

Literature Review:

The review of present literature, apart from helping to find out the research gap, has helped to figure out the important variables related to the present study. Some research articles and books published by experts in the field of SHGs have been reviewed. There are a number of studies on socio-economic development of urban people through SHG intervention on poverty reduction, health, hygiene and environment awareness, educational uplift and women empowerment. Following readings have contributed to gather some ideas:

In September, 2015 in a global summit in New York, world leaders committed to the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which include eradication of extreme poverty for all people; ensuring all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, financial services including microfinance by 2030; reducing global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births; ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health-services, family planning, information and education with special attention to needs of women and girls by 2030; Creating sound policy frameworks based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies and ending all forms of discrimination against women and girls everywhere.¹²

Female education brings about social equity. Empirical evidence shows that educational discrimination against female hampers economic development and reinforces social inequality. Reducing the educational gender gap is economically desirable since (a) the rate of return on women’s education is higher than that on men’s in most developing countries; (b) increasing women’s education not only increases productivity, but also results in greater labour force participation, late marriage, low fertility and greatly improves child health and nutrition; (c) educated mothers cause multiplier effects on the quality of human resources of a nation for many generations to come and (d) any significant change in female status via education can have an important impact on breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and inadequate schooling.¹³

Studies show that expansion of basic education for girls pays the highest rates of return of any investment, even larger than the most public infrastructure projects.¹⁴ SHG members fight for their rights and are empowered to run their children’s education…. ¹⁵

Organized group activities among women have been rapidly growing in India. Economic empowerment of women, through creating opportunities of self-employment, has a cascading effect in other aspects of women’s life. Women empowerment implies self-decision in the matter of education, participation, mobility, exercise of rights and decision-making to credit, finance, property and nutrition and so women must be integrated into development plans, projects, policy design and implementation.¹⁶

SHG activities have the effect of uplifting SHG members to self-employment and increasing of income line, which in turn leads to higher standards of living. On the other hand, SHG activities bring about women empowerment, self-reliance and poverty alleviation leading to many an impact on the socio-economic development.¹⁷

“…the number of persons below the poverty line hardly tell the sad story of the failure of our system.” For this, we may use HDI, a composite index meant to take into account health condition of the population (indexed by longevity), access to education and income, which gives some idea of living conditions. Growth and distribution are integrated into the very process of development. Development process breaks systematically the social barriers of decimation and prejudices based on gender, caste, language, religion or ethnicity. “This is what is Development with Dignity must mean for us in India.” Not being utopia, it is the only reasonable economics that this country can pursue. Accountability at all levels combined with productive participation by the poor at various decentralized levels can chart out the new path to our development. Those who believe that the free market philosophy in a globalizing world would take millions of our citizens out of trap of sub-human poverty are living in a phantasy land.¹⁸

The members of the groups surveyed played a major role in decision-making patterns in most household expenditures. One evidence of program credit impact was increased purchase of physical assets and average amount spent among program participants. Increased school participation rates among school going children and better access to health care are positive indicators as an evidence of program credit impact.¹⁹

Health and education levels are much higher in developed countries. With higher income, people and governments can afford to spend more on these and with greater health and education levels, higher productivity and income will come forth. Thus, due to above relationships the development policy should focus on income, health and education simultaneously- a multipronged strategy to address absolute poverty.²⁰

Basic services such as housing, drinking water, electricity, sewage, sanitation and waste disposal, transport, health, education and employment considered to be the core for people to lead a “life with dignity”, but access has been denied.Poverty alleviation programmes have not achieved desired targets because of lack of community participation in their planning and implementation, mutual mistrust between the bureaucracy and the community and non-adoption of element of right–based approach. A vigorous implementation of a fresh participatory and decentralized planning approach is a solution.²¹

The paper by Sinha, Archana, ‘Women and Children as Marginalized Section amongst the Urban Poor’ describes about gender-biasness. Females have a tremendous impact on the well-being of their families and societies. However, their potential could not be realized due to discriminatory social norms, incentives and legal institutions. Demographically in India, gender discrimination and inequalities are deep-rooted into the value system and socio-cultural fabric. Girl children in India with lesser entitlements and facilities are often treated as inferior undermining their self-esteem. Violence against women includes violence at home and public places posing a serious threat to women’s equality, empowerment and their participation in urban governance. Governments must ensure ending of such violence with suitable legislative and pragmatic action. Protection and promotion of women rights, raising awareness on reproductive health, legal literacy and education concerning women’s entitlements, land reforms, acceptance of family planning and gender budgeting should be included in the urban policy of the governments with suitable legislative and pragmatic action. Female child must be put to school as education improves the quality of life expanding access to employment. While their women’s status has improved in recent decades, yet much more remains to be achieved.²²

‘The paper: Extent of Poverty in India’ of Satpal Singh describes the urban poverty as a complex and multi-dimensional problem and India is the home of large number of poor living in urban areas compared to any other country. Despite various schemes, the urban poverty still remains one of the major issues due to ineffective supervision of the schemes. Poverty pressurizes women to seek employment apart from their own domestic responsibility and work as domestic workers or street vendors or home-based activities mostly in the informal sector and in insecure jobs. Females face double deprivation-one, low attainments and two, gender disparities across all spheres including health, education, livelihoods and decision-making. This is indicative of an urgent need to address the issue of urban poverty in India.²³

Issues relating to urban poverty and livelihood demand for multi-pronged approach with focus on multiple stakeholders’ partnerships. As the level of urbanization escalating, suitable policy frameworks for the planned development of economically productive, environmentally sustainable, financially vibrant, socially just and inclusive cities should be put in place. These should include entitlements and amenities to the urban poor like provisions of land tenure, affordable housing, water, sanitation, education, health and social security among other things.²⁴

Health is defined by the WHO as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. It is one of the vital elements that determines human development. Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen believes that bad health is constitutive of poverty and premature mortality and health deprivation is really the most central aspect of poverty. Thus, good health is a key factor for an individual in leading an economically meaningful life and for socially and economically productive life. Having a direct correlation with welfare of the human being, health finds predominant place in three of the 8 goals, 8 of the 16 targets and 18 of the 48 indicators of the MDGs of the UN. The main focus of State of Tripura is ‘healthcare for all’ with particular reference to the poor and backward people. The State has comparatively performed better in the field of health and medical facilities despite its economic backwardness and absence of modern healthcare facilities. Among many health care objectives, the State focuses to improve maternal and child health and in particular to reduce maternal and infant mortality and to ensure equality in health care to all. A comparative scenario between the State and all India on selective health indicators is depicted is shown in the Table 1.

Table 1: Comparative Scenario of Tripura vis-a-vis Tripura State on Health Indicators

Items	All India	Tripura
Birth Rate	20.8	14.7
Death Rate	6.5	5.2
Natural Growth Rate	14.3	9.5
Infant Mortality Rate	37	20
Total Fertility Rate	2.34	2.22
Sex Ratio	943	960

Source: Report 2015 of Sample Registration Survey of Registrar General of India

Thus, the Table 1 states that on health parameters status of Tripura is better than that of national average. The performance in family planning in terms of sterilization, vasectomy, tubectomy, IUD insertion, contraceptive users, and Oral pill users is very good and that on immunization or vaccination in terms of DPT, OPV, BCG, Measles, TT, Vitamins, Hepatitis and Pulse Polio etc. is also very good.²⁵

That women have been facing discrimination and exploitation in the world including that in India has caught the attention of many. As women form about 50% of the world population, they must be empowered without which socio-economic development is a far cry. The violence against women has been rapidly rising. WHO Report of 2012- sexual violence has been on the rise. The crime scenario against women in India based on National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) study is as follows:

Table 2: Crime-scenario against Women in India

Crime/Offence	1983	1995	2013	2014	2015
Rape	6019	NA	33707	36735	34651
Attempt to Rape	NA	NA	NA	4234	4437
Dowry Deaths	NA	4648	8083	8455	7634
Insult to the Modesty of Women	NA	4689	12589	9735	8685
Cruelty by Husband or his Relatives	NA	28579	12589	9735	8685

Source: ncrb.gov.in pp.6, 8, 9-13 accessed at 12 noon on 31.07.17

The Table 2 is indicative of the fact that violence against women in India is predominantly high. The Human Rights Watch opines that although prosecutions were made against some high-profile rapes and sexual assaults, yet continued reports of gang rapes, domestic violence, acid attacks and murders of women in 2016 are pointers for the urgency of government action to ensure women’s safety and quick police inquiry of such offences.²⁶

The SHG approach empowers women. Development of socio-economic conditions of women, which allows them to take decision, is essential. The social motto is to reduce conventional isolation of women.²⁷ SHGs improve the status of the members in households leading to reduce domestic violence.²⁸

Women play a very crucial role in poverty reduction in their households through participation in micro finance. SHGs improve nutritional status and children’s health.²⁹

SHGs have enabled the members a sense of identity and a common platform to discuss their grievances and matters of common interest. They have helped installed a sense of unity without depending upon their menfolk or money lenders. Azad India Foundation, an NGO, formed in 1988 in Bihar, makes an attempt to enhance the quality of life of women through increased knowledge and skills. It transforms the lives of the poor and marginalized women through SHGs.³⁰

“…. Main goal of SHGs is to empower people-self-employment is an important step to have constant incomes and remove the chains of poverty.”³¹

There are effects and outcomes of SHG activities. The SHG activities have the effect of uplifting SHG members to self-employment and increasing of income line, which in turn leads to higher standards of living. On the other hand, SHG activities bring about women empowerment, self-reliance and poverty alleviation leading to many an impact on the socio-economic development.³²

Through promoting SHGs, IFAD-funded projects have contributed towards improving the overall status of women in terms of income, empowerment, welfare etc. and 90% of women beneficiaries have reported increased access to and control over resources, such as land, dwellings and livestock. In the Himalayas, women SHG members in Uttarakhand were even elected as Gram Pradhans (Head of the local government) in 170 out of 669 Panchayats. The impact study on the Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh Project reveals that access to finance through group savings and lending members had allowed women to become increasingly involved in economic activities including stretching value addition and promoting market linkages.³³

Tripura has a long tradition both in the urban and rural areas with decentralized active administrative set-up achieving the pro-poor inclusive growth and significantly upto 50% reservation for women in the offices of elected members have been made. Apart from additional employment, the approach and strategy of Planning in Tripura includes improvement in sectors like education, drinking water, electricity, housing and healthcare are the priorities among others. The objective of urban development is every settlement safe, healthy and sustainable place. The quality of the urban poor of Tripura, by and large, suffer from accessing basic services relating to water, health, sanitation, electricity, housing etc. at affordable prices in the absence of clear Government policy. Education is acknowledged as one of the key inputs for balanced socio-economic development as it creates opportunities and access to gainful employment to individuals and society and is a crucial input for empowering people with skills and knowledge. Further reduction of gender-gap in enrolment, retention and completion of education and removal of disparity at all levels and ensure equity are the major focus areas to sustain and push forward the achievements and progress on education. The female literacy is very high in Tripura. The extension of vocational and job-oriented technical education should be encouraged.³⁴

SHG is a homegrown model for poverty reduction and empowering women to set up their own group norms, such as level of saving, loan amounts, meeting times, interest rate. SHG members get opportunities to build their skills in leadership, bookkeeping and running business. The SHG movement relies on 3-major principles- self-help, mutual benefit and self-reliance. Post the decline of cooperatives in India, SHGs emerged in the late eighties and early nineties as a stable and viable alternative. In its search for an alternative channel to reach the unreachable, the NABARD found SHGs an effective means to provide banking services to the so-called ‘un-bankable’ people.³⁵

Broadly speaking, social capital is an asset embedded in relationships that facilitates instrumental action among peopleand sharing of knowledge and resources from one person to another.³⁶ According to the World Bank, social capital are norms and networks that enable collective action and shapes quality and quantity of society’s social interactions.³⁷

Microfinance programme has created a social capital which has an empowering effect on SHG members. Microfinance Institutions very frequently bank on creation of social capital to bring about desirable change at macro level.The microfinance, a development programme, can build social capital to improve effectiveness of intended outcome, such as social empowerment of women. A study shows that there is a positive and strong relationship between the years of association of SHG members and the social empowerment created with the help of social capital. Regular activities conducted to run microfinance programmes, such as conducting meetings, peer monitoring on individual member’s financial transactions, using social network, creating a platform for collective action create social capital. Social capital has benefitted women by improving their level of consciousness, awareness, capacity building, decision-making abilities and social mobility through collective action. Expectedly the focus of microfinance has to be more leveraging on social capital to bring about social change rather than attaining financial sustainability.³⁸

It was found in a study of development outcomes in 69 North Indian village communities that villages with high levels of social capital also have high development performances measured in terms of enhancement in livelihood stability, employment generation, poverty reduction and improvement in quality of basic services. The study concludes that the impact of social capital has multiplicative relations with other development resources such as capacity of village leaders to bring out socio-economic change.³⁹

Women empowerment is a process whereby women are capable to organize themselves to enhance their own self-reliance, to assert their independent right to make choices and to control resources which will assist in challenging and eliminating their own subordination. Creation of social capital brings about collective consciousness amongst disempowered women. Economic empowerment focuses on higher access to credit, savings and other economic resources, such as business training for securing better economic position of women leading further to better bargaining position at home and community. Self-empowerment focuses on ‘power within’ i.e., development of self-esteem, confidence and leadership qualities.⁴⁰

In India, SHGs are promoted by the Government to be entrepreneurs. They are facilitated with training to carry out certain kind of work. While banks must arrange for financial assistance to take up manufacturing and trading activities and arrange marketing facilities, the Government will procure the SHG products, arrange for capacity of women in terms of leadership quality and administrative ability for management of SHGs by women themselves. SHGs, raised with the Government support, have come out as an offshoot of a social movement. ⁴¹

Social Impact: Participation in SHGs and its Impact on Educational Upliftment, Awareness on Health and Hygiene, Environment and Women empowerment:

Social Impact on non-economic parameters in urban SHGs, particularly on education, health and hygiene and change in the level of awareness including environmental awareness and women empowerment on parameters like domestic violence, awareness about women entitlements etc. has been examined among urban SHGs based on the primary data collected from the urban areas of Tripura.

Educational Upliftment of SHGs and their Family members:

There has been improvement upon the SHG members themselves and their children in the urban study area of Tripura due to their participation. The State programme on adult literacy has made a significant improvement, because the state literacy rate is 87% as per the Census of India 2011 and based on the study conducted by the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, the literacy rate of Tripura stands at 95.16 percent in 2013. This programme has also significantly impacted the SHG-related awareness and cascaded to family members of SHGs/themselves. There has been improvement upon children’s education due to Sarvo Siksha Abhijan (SAA) programme too.

Educational Status of Members:

Data sharing the status of the members before the SHG formation and post-SHG formation has been depicted in Table 3 for the 353 SHGs for which the present study is conducted. The table shows that out of 4099 SHG members during pre-SHG time, the number of members at the primary level was 2354 (57.43%) and during the SHG period it came down to 2102 (51.28%). This implies that 6.15% of total members have upgraded their educational qualification by moving away from primary level to Secondary level.

Table 3: Educational Status of SHG Members- A Comparison

Sl. No.	Name of the District / Name of the ULB		No. of members	Educational Status of Members
				Before			After			Percentage Change between ‘After’ and ‘Before’
				Pry	Secondary/H.S	Graduation/ PG	Pry	Secondary/ H.S	Graduation / PG	Pry	Secondary/H.S	Graduation / PG
1	North Tripura	Dharmanagar	*124*	44	62	18	44	60	20	0	-1.613	1.6129
2	Unokoti	Kumarghat	272	189	68	15	154	98	20	-12.87	11.03	1.8382
2	Unokoti	Kailashahar	278	254	20	4	222	44	12	-11.51	8.633	2.8777
3	Dhalai	Kamalpur	101	52	46	3	42	51	8	-9.901	4.95	4.9505
4	Khowai	Teliamura	347	273	56	18	241	78	28	-9.222	6.34	2.8818
5	West Tripura	AMC	389	563	622	228	518	634	261	-11.57	3.085	8.4833
5	West Tripura	Ranirbazar	152	250	176	34	226	182	52	-15.79	3.947	11.842
6	Sepahijala	Bishalgarh	1413	75	31	5	71	32	8	-0.283	0.071	0.2123
6	Sepahijala	Sonamura	460	27	63	19	15	68	26	-2.609	1.087	1.5217
7	Gomati	Amarpur	112	105	39	8	93	47	12	-10.71	7.143	3.5714
7	Gomati	Udaipur	166	283	78	28	263	93	33	-12.05	9.036	3.012
8	South Tripura	Belonia	65	67	34	11	63	35	14	-6.154	1.538	4.6154
		Santirbazar	109	43	18	4	38	21	6	-4.587	2.752	1.8349
		Sabroom	111	129	27	10	112	42	12	-15.32	13.51	1.8018
Total			4099	2354	1340	405	2102	1485	512	-6.148	3.537	2.6104

Source: Processed Field Data

Source: Processed Field Data based on Table No.3

Fig.1: District-wise Percentage Change in Educational Status of SHG Members

Table 4: Impact on Education among members of SHG Families

Sl. No.	Name of the District / Name of the ULB		Has Participation in State Literacy Programme by eligible members of SHG families improved their educational status?				Has there been Improvement of Children's Education due to various programmes like SSA?


			YES		NO		YES		NO
			No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
1	North Tripura	Dharmanagar	3	30	7	70	4	40	6	60
2	Unokoti	Kumarghat	14	60.87	9	39.1	14	60.87	9	39.13
2	Unokoti	Kailashahar	15	65.22	8	34.8	13	56.52	10	43.49
3	Dhalai	Kamalpur	6	42.86	8	57.1	10	71.43	4	28.57
4	Khowai	Teliamura	22	75.86	7	24.1	21	72.4	8	27.59
5	West Tripura	AMC	61	53.51	53	46.5	89	78.07	25	21.93
5	West Tripura	Ranirbazar	26	63.42	15	36.6	36	87.86	5	12.20
6	Sepahijala	Bishalgarh	4	40	6	60	9	90	1	10
6	Sepahijala	Sonamura	6	66.67	3	33.3	7	77.78	2	22.22
7	Gomati	Amarpur	10	71.43	4	28.6	11	78.57	3	21.43
7	Gomati	Udaipur	12	34.29	23	65.7	25	71.43	10	28.57
8	South Tripura	Belonia	7	70	3	30	5	50	5	50
		Santirbazar	4	66.67	2	33.3	4	66.67	2	33.33
		Sabroom	10	66.67	5	33.3	10	66.67	5	33.33
Total			200	56.66	153	43.3	258	73.09	95	26.91

Source: Processed Field Data

Table 5: Awareness about Diseases, Family Planning Methods, Availing of Immunization Facilities and Perception about Child Mortality Rate among SHGs

Sl. No.	Name of the District / Name of the ULB		No. of SHGs	Has Level of Awareness about Infectious Diseases increased?				Has the Child Mortality Rate declined?
								Has the Child Mortality Rate declined?
				YES		NO		YES		NO
				No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
1	North Tripura	Dharmanagar	10	7	70	3	30	7	70	3	30
2	Unokoti	Kumarghat	23	23	100	0	0	21	91	2	9
2	Unokoti	Kailashahar	23	22	96	1	4	18	78	5	22
3	Dhalai	Kamalpur	14	14	100	0	0	13	93	1	7
4	Khowai	Teliamura	29	25	86	4	14	19	66	10	34
5	West Tripura	AMC	114	74	65	40	35	87	76	27	24
5	West Tripura	Ranirbazar	41	22	54	19	46	25	61	16	39
6	Sepahijala	Bishalgarh	10	7	70	3	30	6	60	4	40
6	Sepahijala	Sonamura	9	6	67	3	33	6	67	3	33
7	Gomati	Amarpur	14	7	50	7	50	12	86	2	14
7	Gomati	Udaipur	35	35	100	0	0	34	97	1	3
8	South Tripura	Belonia	10	9	90	1	10	7	70	3	30
		Santirbazar	6	6	100	0	0	3	50	3	50
		Sabroom	15	15	100	0	0	12	80	3	20
Total			353	272	77	81	23	270	76	83	24

Table 5 continued

Sl. No.	Name of the District / Name of the ULB		No. of SHGs	Has Level of Awareness about Infectious Diseases increased?				Has the Child Mortality Rate declined?
								Has the Child Mortality Rate declined?
				YES		NO		YES		NO
				No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
1	North Tripura	Dharmanagar	10	7	70	3	30	7	70	3	30
2	Unokoti	Kumarghat	23	23	100	0	0	21	91	2	9
2	Unokoti	Kailashahar	23	22	96	1	4	18	78	5	22
3	Dhalai	Kamalpur	14	14	100	0	0	13	93	1	7
4	Khowai	Teliamura	29	25	86	4	14	19	66	10	34
5	West Tripura	AMC	114	74	65	40	35	87	76	27	24
5	West Tripura	Ranirbazar	41	22	54	19	46	25	61	16	39
6	Sepahijala	Bishalgarh	10	7	70	3	30	6	60	4	40
6	Sepahijala	Sonamura	9	6	67	3	33	6	67	3	33
7	Gomati	Amarpur	14	7	50	7	50	12	86	2	14
7	Gomati	Udaipur	35	35	100	0	0	34	97	1	3
8	South Tripura	Belonia	10	9	90	1	10	7	70	3	30
		Santirbazar	6	6	100	0	0	3	50	3	50
		Sabroom	15	15	100	0	0	12	80	3	20
Total			353	272	77	81	23	270	76	83	24

Source: Processed Field Data

Table 6: Enhanced Health Check-ups, Annual Medical Expenses, Institutional Child Birth and Availing of Mid-day Meal by SHGs and their Families

Sl. No.	Name of the District / Name of the ULB		No. of SHGs	Whether Regular Health Check-ups for Self and 0ther family Members enhanced?				Whether Annual Expenses on Heath Check-ups and Medicine enhanced?

				YES		NO		YES		NO
				No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
1	North Tripura	Dharmanagar	10	1	10	9	90	3	30	7	70
2	Unokoti	Kumarghat	23	16	70	7	30	9	39	14	61
2	Unokoti	Kailashahar	23	22	96	1	4	22	96	1	4
3	Dhalai	Kamalpur	14	7	50	7	50	3	21	11	79
4	Khowai	Teliamura	29	8	28	21	72	8	28	21	72
5	West Tripura	AMC	114	76	67	38	33	67	59	47	41
5	West Tripura	Ranirbazar	41	18	44	23	56	10	24	31	76
6	Sepahijala	Bishalgarh	10	8	80	2	20	5	50	5	50
6	Sepahijala	Sonamura	9	3	33	6	67	3	33	6	67
7	Gomati	Amarpur	14	5	36	9	64	7	50	7	50
7	Gomati	Udaipur	35	12	34	23	66	21	60	14	40
8	South Tripura	Belonia	10	5	50	5	50	4	40	6	60
		Santirbazar	6	6	100	0	0	5	83	1	17
		Sabroom	15	10	67	5	33	14	93	1	7
Total			353	197	56	156	44	181	51	172	49

Table 6 continued

Sl. No.	Name of the District / Name of the ULB		No. of SHGs	Has Institutional Child Birth increased?				Has Availing of Mid-day Meal facilities in schools through Children increased?
				Has Institutional Child Birth increased?
				YES		NO		YES		NO
				No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
1	North Tripura	Dharmanagar	10	7	70	3	30	7	70	3	30
2	Unokoti	Kumarghat	23	22	96	1	4	14	61	9	39
2	Unokoti	Kailashahar	23	22	96	1	4	22	96	1	4
3	Dhalai	Kamalpur	14	13	93	1	7	14	100	0	0
4	Khowai	Teliamura	29	29	100	0	0	27	93	2	7
5	West Tripura	AMC	114	111	97	3	3	80	70	34	30
5	West Tripura	Ranirbazar	41	37	90	4	10	28	68	13	32
6	Sepahijala	Bishalgarh	10	9	90	1	10	6	60	4	40
6	Sepahijala	Sonamura	9	8	89	1	11	9	100	0	0
7	Gomati	Amarpur	14	12	86	2	14	9	64	5	36
7	Gomati	Udaipur	35	34	97	1	3	30	86	5	14
8	South Tripura	Belonia	10	10	100	0	0	7	70	3	30
		Santirbazar	6	5	83	1	17	2	33	4	67
		Sabroom	15	14	93	1	7	8	53	7	47
Total			353	333	94	20	6	263	75	90	25

Source: Field Data Processed based on Perceptions of SHGs

Table 7: Perceptions of SHGs on Domestic Violence, Access on Decision-making in families, Environmental Awareness and Social Injustice against women

Sl. No.	Name of the District / Name of the ULB		No. of SHGs	Has Domestic Violence declined?				Do you have access for Decision-making influencing decision of the family?


				YES		NO		YES		NO
				No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
1	North Tripura	Dharmanagar	10	5	50	5	50	4	40	6	60
2	Unokoti	Kumarghat	23	4	17	19	83	11	48	12	52
2	Unokoti	Kailashahar	23	10	44	13	56	13	56	10	44
3	Dhalai	Kamalpur	14	9	64	5	36	9	64	5	36
4	Khowai	Teliamura	29	26	90	3	10	26	90	3	10
5	West Tripura	AMC	114	83	73	31	27	48	42	66	58
5	West Tripura	Ranirbazar	41	28	68	13	32	23	56	18	44
6	Sepahijala	Bishalgarh	10	5	50	5	50	3	30	7	70
6	Sepahijala	Sonamura	9	2	22	7	78	2	22	7	78
7	Gomati	Amarpur	14	9	64	5	36	7	50	7	50
7	Gomati	Udaipur	35	14	40	21	60	25	71	10	29
8	South Tripura	Belonia	10	7	70	3	30	8	80	2	20
		Santirbazar	6	3	50	3	50	4	67	2	33
		Sabroom	15	11	73	4	27	14	93	1	7
Total			353	216	61	137	39	197	56	156	44

Sl. No.	Name of the District / Name of the ULB		No. of SHGs	Do you have Awareness about Environment?				Has Social Injustice/Discrimination against Women declined?


				YES		NO		YES		NO
				No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
1	North Tripura	Dharmanagar	10	4	40	6	60	2	20	8	80
2	Unokoti	Kumarghat	23	9	39	14	61	7	30	16	70
2	Unokoti	Kailashahar	23	22	96	1	4	14	61	9	39
3	Dhalai	Kamalpur	14	8	57	6	43	6	43	8	57
4	Khowai	Teliamura	29	26	90	3	10	19	66	10	34
5	West Tripura	AMC	114	71	62	43	38	44	39	70	61
5	West Tripura	Ranirbazar	41	28	68	13	32	29	71	12	29
6	Sepahijala	Bishalgarh	10	6	60	4	40	10	100	0	0
6	Sepahijala	Sonamura	9	6	67	3	33	7	78	2	22
7	Gomati	Amarpur	14	7	50	7	50	10	71	4	29
7	Gomati	Udaipur	35	19	54	16	46	26	74	9	26
8	South Tripura	Belonia	10	6	60	4	40	2	20	8	80
		Santirbazar	6	6	100	0	0	6	100	0	0
		Sabroom	15	15	100	0	0	5	33	10	67
Total			353	233	66	120	34	187	53	166	47

Source: Field Survey Data Processed

Table 8: Women Empowerment among SHGs through their Rights, Participation in Mass Organizations and Social Status

Sl. No.	Name of the District / Name of the ULB		No. of SHGs	Do you think that Rights and Entitlements ensured for you?				Has Women’s Participation in Social Functions/Mass Organizations increased?				Do you feel that your Status in the Society has been allevated?


				YES		NO		YES		NO		YES		NO
				No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%	No.	%
1	North Tripura	Dharmanagar	10	6	60	4	40	8	80	2	20	5	50	5	50
2	Unokoti	Kumarghat	23	12	52	11	47.8	11	47.8	12	52.17	23	100	0	0
2	Unokoti	Kailashahar	23	10	43	13	56.5	2	8.7	21	91.3	7	30.4	16	69.57
3	Dhalai	Kamalpur	14	7	50	7	50	7	50	7	50	13	92.9	1	7.143
4	Khowai	Teliamura	29	15	52	12	41.4	22	75.9	7	24.14	26	89.7	3	10.34
5	West Tripura	AMC	114	71	62	43	37.7	77	67.5	37	32.46	59	51.8	55	48.25
5	West Tripura	Ranirbazar	41	26	63	15	36.6	26	63.4	15	36.59	28	68.3	13	31.71
6	Sepahijala	Bishalgarh	10	6	60	4	40	4	40	6	60	8	80	2	20
6	Sepahijala	Sonamura	9	6	67	3	33.3	7	77.8	2	22.22	7	77.8	2	22.22
7	Gomati	Amarpur	14	12	86	2	14.3	11	78.6	3	21.43	8	57.1	6	42.86
7	Gomati	Udaipur	35	23	66	12	34.3	29	82.9	6	17.14	28	80	7	20
8	South Tripura	Belonia	10	5	50	5	50	6	60	4	40	6	60	4	40
		Santirbazar	6	4	67	2	33.3	5	83.3	1	16.67	6	100	0	0
		Sabroom	15	10	67	5	33.3	12	80	3	20	11	73.3	4	26.67
Total			353	213	60	138	39.1	227	64.3	126	35.7	235	66.6	118	33.4

Source: Field Data Processed

Source: Field Data Processed and based on Table 8

Fig.6: Overall comparison on Rights and Entitlements, Social Participation and Social Status in Study areas of Urban Tripura

‘Leadership’ is one of the most important organizational indicators for the sustainability of SHGs. This element is often overlooked by ULBs or UDD. Thus, for the better management and sustainability of SHGs, the leadership quality needs to be inculcated among SHG members. The President, Secretary, Treasurer and one/two enthusiastic members of each SHG should be given leadership and management training. Disciplined, sincere and transparent office-bearers should be created in each SHG and should be rewarded. This has been the corner stone of self-sustaining SHGs in the Grameen Model of Md. Yunus of Bangladesh.

RESULTS:

From what has been analyzed above, the findings of the study are as follows:

(a) There has been marginal increase in educational status among the members of the SHGs in the study area. In case of graduation/post-graduation stage, there has been positive change implying that members have attained this level from the other two lower categories. This shows that the awareness and economic activities among SHGs have impacted positively in educational status among members. The literacy rate of family members of SHGs has increased due to their participation in the State literacy programme. The overall improvement in children’s education has been possible due to impact brought about through various socio-economic activities and awareness in SHGs.

(b) The positive impact, due to SHG activities amongst women members in general, has led to improvement on health awareness and availing of health facilities by SHG members in sample urban areas of Tripura. Amongst nine health indicators, responses of 72–94% of SHGs have been positive on the enhancement of (i) awareness about infectious diseases, (ii) awareness and adoption of family planning method, (iii) awareness on AIDS–related diseases, (iv) availing of immunization facilities, (v) incidence of institutional child birth, (vi) availing of mid-day meal facilities through children at schools and (vii) decline in child mortality rate. Responses have been positive to the extent of 51% and 56% respectively for annual expenses on health check-ups and medicines and regular health-checkups of women of SHGs and their family members meaning thereby that there is still a scope for further improvement on these health parameters. On the whole, the highest improvement has taken place in respect of institutional child birth, followed by increase in participation of children in Government Mid-day meal Scheme in schools.

(c) The data analyzed in the study areas have amply supported that (i) the domestic violence in the urban areas has declined;(ii) women of SHGs can influence the decision-making process of their families; (iii) SHG activities have created awareness among women members about keeping and living in clean environment, sense of sanitation and hygiene; (iv) social injustice/discrimination against women has declined. All this has resulted in bringing in self-esteem, safety, security and empowerment of SHG women members in the society.

(d) Socio-economic activities and awareness of SHGs have impacted to a good extent in actualizing the rights and entitlements of women members themselves of SHGs and women members of their families in turn, which is a positive result of women empowerment among SHGs.

(e) SHG women participation in social functions/mass organizations has increased in empowering women in the society to a large extent.

(f) Majority of SHG women have felt that their status in the society has been elevated and thereby they have been socially empowered.

(g) The respondents, mainly office-bearers of SHGs, have viewed that they have felt empowered in attending and organizing group meetings. Revelation of perceptions of a good majority of them supports that leadership quality has developed in them while leading their groups in myriad of activities in the urban areas studied.

(h) Crime against women is on the rise and becoming a menace despite awareness. This may be due to official reporting against the criminals to the police by victimized women, who dare to report. However, there may be unreported crimes committed against women and victims do not feel the societal and administrative environment favorable for doing so.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Based on the results or findings, the following recommendations are made:

(a) In the wake of educational gap against women to be bridged, the State Government and ULBs should strive to provide opportunities through informal educational facilities and creation of environment so that willing SHG members can reach their desired educational attainment, which will go a long way for their own development as well as development of their family members in terms of capacity building. Realizing that female education can bring about social equity, increased productivity and efficiency, higher labour force participation, delaying marriage, lowering fertility, improvement of child health and nutrition, which ultimately help impact on breaking the cycle of poverty.

(b) In Tripura, female literacy is very high but lower than the male literacy. In addition to general education, the State Government should have a policy of extension of vocational and technical education including entrepreneurship and skill development to SHG members so that higher learning outcomes and opportunities are met so that women become educated and self-reliant. Although there is a very good tradition, legacy and awareness about the rights and entitlements of women members of SHGs in Tripura, yet there is a scope for bringing about more legal awareness in SHGs.

(c) In consonance with the SDGs, the State policy and its implementation should ensure better universal access to sexual and reproductive health services, acceptance of family planning, equal rights to economic resources, ownership and control over all forms of property, inheritance and designing information, education and communication (IEC) activities with special attention to the needs of women and girls.

(d) A multi-pronged development strategy to address poverty should be designed by the Government focusing on income, health and education simultaneously so that enhanced productivity is ensured among SHGs. This will enhance HDI, a composite index of access of people to health, education and increasing income.

(e) Bad health leads to poverty and premature mortality, but good health is a key factor for an individual in leading to an economically meaningful and productive life (Amartya Sen). Keeping this general view on board, the health policy should incorporate focusing on the poor and improved maternal and child health. There should be a proper action plan in all ULBs involving the Health & Family Welfare and Social Welfare Departments of the State to ensure 100% institutional child birth and full coverage by participation of children in the Government Mid-day meal Scheme in schools and regular health check-ups in the available Government healthcare facilities in urban areas of the State. SHGs should be made aware of the health-related issues including diseases so that their members can perceive better and avail of the Government health service facilities available for their healthy life, which will definitely help them to perform better in their livelihood activities.

(f) The State Government and ULBs should take steps to bring about awareness among both males and females to ensure reduction in gender disparities. Taking advantage of very high female literacy in Tripura, ULBs and the State Government should plan for further ensuring safe motherhood, reduction in infant mortality and MMR. Designing a fresh IEC on HIV/AIDS for lowering its incidence and protection of and promotion of environment for SHGs in particular should be done for better results.

(g) Discriminatory social norms, deep-rooted gender biasness and inequalities should be removed. The Government should come out with the policy framework having elements of pro-poor and gender sensitive development programmes to end all forms of discrimination against women and girls. There should be suitable legislative and pragmatic action plan to end violence against women and promote women’s education, rights, entitlements, legal literacy, awareness about reproductive health, acceptance of family planning, participation of women in urban governance and gender budgeting. The perception of SHGs on access to decision-making influencing the decision of the family and social injustice/discrimination against women being low, there is a room for further improvement over these issues of the society relating to women. Motivation and awareness campaign on women’s rights by ULBs for both males and females should be conducted to improve further.

(h) Though SHG women participation in social functions/mass organizations has increased in empowering women in the society, yet for the development of SHGs, ULBs and the UDD in Tripura should take steps for further improvement to ensure women’s involvement in social activities, gender equity and empowerment. This can be done through counseling of both males and females with the help of Social Welfare Department and other concerned Government Departments. The support of the NGOs should also be taken into confidence for bringing awareness among SHGs on this aspect. There is also scope to improve the adverse gender ratio from the present level of 960 in the State and 943 in all India level.

(i) The crime against women, being predominantly high, there is an urgency of the Government to ensure women’s safety and security. Exemplary punishment should be meted out to offenders to deter further crime mongers in this field.

(j) For better management and sustainability of SHGs, the leadership quality needs to be inculcated among SHG membersfor better management of SHGs by women themselves. The President, Secretary, Treasurer and one/two enthusiastic members of each SHG should be given leadership and management training. Disciplined, sincere and transparent office-bearers should be created in each SHG and should be rewarded. Other members of SHGs should also be encouraged to build leadership skills capability.

(k) In consonance with 50% reservation policy of all women in the local bodies in Tripura, the representation of women in the Legislative Assemblies in Tripura and North-East Indian States should also be ensured in order to uphold women empowerment. Women SHG office-bearers should also be involved to participate/represent in the local bodies.

(l) Realizing the result of one study that there is a positive and strong relationship between the years of association of the SHG members and the social empowerment created with the help of social capital and that the impact of social capital has multiplicative relations with other development resources such as capacity of village leaders to bring out socio-economic change and development outcomes, social capital should be imbibed among SHGs so that high development performances are enhanced in livelihood stability, employment generation, poverty reduction and improvement in quality of basic services. Social capital should also bring in self-empowerment focusing on ‘power within’ i.e., development of self-esteem, confidence and leadership qualities of women leading further to better bargaining position at home and community level.

CONCLUSION:

The socio-economic development of women though SHG approach has associated women with project designing and implementation for their groups and this has broken the social barriers of prejudices based on gender, caste, religion or ethnicity and shape women to live with dignity. Women employment via SHG approach has alleviated social status of women.

The economic empowerment of women has brought about a cascading effect in non-economic aspects of women’s life, such as empowerment in self-decision-making in the matter of education, nutrition, participation, mobility, exercise of rights, property, credit, earnings, self-reliance in the study area.Health has a direct correlation with the welfare of human being and it finds a predominant place in MDGs of the UN. Although the study area is better than the national average on many health indicators, yet there is a scope health parameters to ensure better health for all men and women in particular.

The SHG approach has promoted gender equity and women empowerment involving women through their active participation, volunteerism and institutionalizing in the process of development to derive economic and non-economic benefits. The ULBs should improve upon the grossly inadequate urban infrastructures so that SHGs are attracted in order to bring about a quality change in the life of their members through increased economic productivity.

The SHG approach has enabled women folk to have a sense of identity, a common platform to discuss matters of common interest and grievances and to find solutions and enabled them to enhance the quality of life of women through increased knowledge and skills for transforming the lives of the poor and marginalized women. After the decline of cooperatives in India, SHG approach has become a viable alternative. SHG model should be adopted for poverty reduction, empowering women and achieving other goals, such as creation of opportunities in building skills and leadership among women.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Received on 17.04.2018 Modified on 19.05.2018

Res. J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 2018; 9(2): 356-374.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5828.2018.00064.5