Assessment of Priorities for “Access to Primary Facilities” and “Eradication of Social Evils” of Women after Joining Self Help Groups: In Context to Women Empowerment

 

Ku. Kailasha Tiger¹*, Dr. Ravidra Brahme²

¹Research Scholar, Economic, Pt. Ravi Shankar Shukla University, Raipur

    

ABSTRACT:

The soul of India lives in Villages. Even though India got independence six decades ago yet the villages in India is still facing problem of underdevelopment. This underdevelopment is in form of social, cultural, infrastructure and economic backwardness. To elaborate these problems come in form of unemployment, illiteracy, population explosion due to lack of family planning steps, failure of agriculture in consecutive years, poorest health management infrastructure etc. Every individual in the village is being suffered from these issues, but the worst hit are the women and the children. Using SHG’s as tool government is trying to eradicate the sufferings of rural women. Some of the evils that is targeted by SHG’s are no presence of economic independence, no access of primary facilities to women and unorthodox social chain. In this research work an attempt has been made to study how self-help groups are enabling women empowerment. In this research work the two important pillars of women empowerment has been considered, first – after joining SHG which primary facilities the women opted for themselves and their family. Secondly – after joining SHG eradication of which social evils were their priority. Using Henry Garret Rank analysis it was deduced that first priority of access to primary facilities for female SHG members was preparation of ration/health card, while first priority of eradication of social evil for female SHG members was strict negation to work.

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

The soul of India lives in Villages. Even though India got independence six decades ago yet the villages in India is still facing problem of underdevelopment. This underdevelopment is in form of social, cultural, infrastructure and economic backwardness [1]. To elaborate these problems come in form of unemployment, illiteracy, population explosion due to lack of family planning steps, failure of agriculture in consecutive years, poorest health management infrastructure etc. Every individual in the village is being suffered from these issues, but the worst hit are the women and the children. The women are the worst hit because

 

 

they are still chained by the backward social and cultural values that restrict them to go out of their home and earn livelihood [2]. The livelihood is still in majority earned by the men of the house and women get a very little share of it. Majority of what is earned by men are spent in alcohol and wine along with gambling [3]. It is an accepted fact that when a team works on something, team work results in improved performance. Hence there is a constant need that women come up in group to form a team to break the chains of orthodox social and cultural restrictions.

 

In context of above stated discussion NABARD under its umbrella has launched a project called as Self Help Group or popularly known as SHG’s. In SHG women form a group. The group works on common minimum agenda that generally focus on how the women in the group can earn their livelihood and break the chains of social and cultural orthodox values that restrict them to become self-dependent [4].

 

Using SHG’s as tool government is trying to eradicate the sufferings of rural women. Some of the evils that is targeted by SHG’s are no presence of economic independence, no access of primary facilities to women and unorthodox social chain.

 

In this research work an attempt has been made to study how self-help groups are enabling women empowerment. In this research work the two important pillars of women empowerment has been considered, first – after joining SHG which primary facilities the women opted for themselves and their family. Secondly – after joining SHG eradication of which social evils were their priority. The outcome will help the policy makers to devise ways to address top concerns of women in rural region in sequential manner.

 

METHODOLOGY:

The methodology adopted in this research work is quantitative research methodology. The details of methodology are presented below.

1.    Sample Size – 200 women members of SHG, 10 women member of 20 SHG groups

2.    Sample Area – Rajnandgaon district of State of Chhattisgarh

3.    Sampling Type – Convenience Sampling – Random

4.    Analysis technique – Self-administered questions focusing on primary facilities status and eradication of social evils was asked to the respondents. The respondents were required to rank the questions on a scale. The ranking was to be provided as per the priority in which the women opted for it. Once the responses were received Henry Garret Rank Analysis was used to analyze the data. The analysis will result in what are the issues that women focused first.

 

ANALYSIS:

As discussed earlier the research work focus on two pillars of women empowerment. The first the accessibility to primary facilities of living and the second is the eradication of social evils.

 

The first part is being presented first. The table 1 presented below is the tabulated response of the women members participating in the survey.

 

 

Table 1: Tabulated response of Women Respondents for the priorities of primary facilities

 

 

or the analysis availability of drinking water, electricity connection, lavatory, drainage system, cooking gas connection and ration or health card was kept as primary facilities that should be accessible to women. The women members of SHG were asked to rank the facilities in order of which they worked to get their access to after joining SHG. Information about these primary facilities were provided to women members by the group leader, Anganbadi behenji, Surpanch, Government doctor etc. as a part of their continuous learning initiative.

 

From the table 1 it is evident that 5 people ranked availability of drinking water as their first priority, 33 as second, 57 as third, 66 as fourth, 32 as fifth and 7 as sixth.

 

4 people ranked electricity connection as their first priority, 11 as second, 17 as third, 22 as fourth, 31 as fifth and 115 as sixth.

 

92 people ranked lavatory as their first priority, 50 as second, 11 as third, 34 as fourth, 4 as fifth and 9 as sixth.

 

7 people ranked drainage system as their first priority, 14 as second, 20 as third, 34 as fourth, 67 as fifth and 58 as sixth.

 

4 people ranked cooking gas connection as their first priority, 38as second, 71 as third, 33 as fourth, 45 as fifth and 9 as sixth.

88 people ranked ration or health card as their first priority, 54 as second, 24 as third, 11 as fourth, 21 as fifth and 2 as sixth.

 

Using Henry Garret Rank Formula to calculate Garret percent position, the percent position associated to each rank was calculated. The formula for the same was 100 X (R -0.5)/6, where R ranged from 1,2 ….6. Associated Garret Values for the percent position was calculated from Garret Table. The values so obtained from table was multiplied column wise to the matrix presented in table 1. Once multiplication was done the elements were added row wise and finally was divided by number of respondents in the survey i.e. 200. The values so obtained was arrange in descending order. From the analysis, it was deduced that preparation of ration card or health card was the first priority of women members after joining SHG. The rank of rest of the primary facilities has been presented in table 2.

 

 

Table 2: Primary Facilities ranked as per their priority as per the women members of SHG

Primary Facilities	Rank
Availability of Drinking Water	4th
Electricity Connection	6th
Lavatory	2nd
Drainage System	5th
Cooking Gas Connection	3rd
Ration or Health Card	1st

 

Table 3 presents the tabulated response for the priorities of women members for eradication of social evils.

 

 

 

 

 

Table 3 Tabulated response of Women Respondents for the priorities of eradication of social evils

Social Evil	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total
Lack of participation in household budget preparation	32	33	6	81	23	12	13	200
Complete dependence on men for dealing with economic crisis	14	34	7	49	56	21	19	200
Strict negation to Work	55	45	55	33	4	5	3	200
Limit of women till kitchen only	10	3	7	12	78	57	33	200
Domestic Violence	56	48	37	11	5	33	10	200
No access to Education for self and children of house	11	23	45	10	3	31	77	200
Lack of Confidence in themselves due to social orthodox culture	22	14	43	4	31	41	45	200
total	200	200	200	200	200	200	200

 

 

Lack of participation in household budget preparation, complete dependence on men for dealing with economic crisis, strict negation to work, limit of women till kitchen only, domestic violence, no access to education for self and children of the house, lack of confidence in themselves due to social orthodox culture were the social evil that were focused in the survey. The responses of the women are presented in table 3. Henry Garret Analysis was applied on the matrix presented in table 3. This time the formula for Garret Position was modified to 100 X (R-0.5)/7, where R=1,2……7.

It was deduced that eradication of social evil named “Strict Negation to Work” was the first priority of women SHG members. The priority obtained after analysis of table 3 has been presented in table 4.

 

Table 4: Priorities obtained for eradication of social evil after Henry Garret analysis

Primary Facilities	Rank
Lack of participation in household budget preparation	3rd
Complete dependence on men for dealing with economic crisis	4th
Strict negation to Work	1st
Limit of women till kitchen only	7th
Domestic Violence	2nd
No access to Education for self and children of house	6th
Lack of Confidence in themselves due to social orthodox culture	5th

 

RESULT AND CONCLUSION:

From the analysis, the following results can be concluded

1.    The state government is providing single electricity bulb connection to every household in rural area. The state of Chhattisgarh is also a power surplus state and power cut takes place only for maintenance purpose. Drinking water is not an issue in rural households as pollution is not dominant in rural scenario as it is in urban India scenario. Looking in to these facts it can be said that access to rest other primary facilities might be the first priority of the women of SHG. The Government of Chhattisgarh provides medical aid to every household up to twenty thousand per year, along with food guarantee for every person of the state. Hence this was an obvious choice of female SHG members. Lavatory was the second choice of female SHG members. Lung associated diseased due to excessive exposure to smoke resulting from cooking fuel such as forest wood and cow dung has compelled women members of SHG to make availability of Cooking Gas as primary Choice.

2.    In Chhattisgarh, particularly in rural areas families share a strong bond and joint families are common. In these joint families still prevails the orthodox culture. Stepping out of women from house to earn livelihood is considered taboo and women are generally restricted from working outside the house. Female SHG members opted for eradication of this as first priority. This might be also due to the fact that a Self-help group has to associate itself to some kind of economic activity so that the group has a source of earning and the profit can be shared among the members of SHG.  Second important priority as stated by women SHG members were eradication of Domestic Violence.

 

REFERENCES:

1.     A.C. Mahopatra, Bhuyan Zna. "Women in-migrants in urban informal sectors of a metropolitan city of Assam, India." 1.2 (2012).

2.     Raj, Manisha. "Women Empowerment through Employment opportunities in India." Internal journal of management and international business studies (2014): 93-100.

3.     Rozana, Nik and Mohd Masdek. "Empowerment of rural women in the agriculture community through women development programs." Agricultural human resources development (2015): 1-5.

4.     Singh, Sahab, Gaurav Thakur and P C Gupta. "A case study on empowermenr of rural women through micro entreprenureship development." IOSR Journal of Business and management (2013): 123-126.

 

Received on 23.09.2016

Modified on 02.10.2016

Accepted on 20.11.2016

© A&V Publication all right reserved

Research J. Humanities and Social Sciences. 7(4): October- December, 2016, 285-288.