Published Paper Details:

Poverty and unemployment are considered as major hindrances to the socioeconomic development of a nation. The picture is not different in our country. During 80s the Government of India introduced various situation-specific schemes for employment generation and poverty alleviation in both rural and urban sectors. Although these schemes could bring about little changes in the living condition of the poor yet that was not sufficient as expected. In that context, the concept of Self-Help Group emerged as a standard tool for rectifying the problem of low employment and high poverty in our country. In India microfinance operates through two models: (a) Self Help Groups (SHGs) model. (b) Microfinance Finance Institutions (MFIs) model. Among the two models, the Self-Help Group model has been accepted as a powerful tool for poverty alleviation and employment generation which improves the income level as well as the living condition of the poor people. It not only generates employment but also contributes to the household income of the beneficiaries. Microfinance in India has achieved a new turn after the formation of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in the year 1982. Since its inception, NABARD has been conducting many research programs for delivering financial services at a large scale, creating self-employment, and also providing loans rather than grants to its beneficiaries. In the year 1992 NABARD launched the "Self Help Group (SHG)-Bank Linkage Programme" for providing affordable banking services to the doorstep and is now marked as the largest microfinance programme in the world. As on 31st March 2020, 12.4 crore households and more than 102 lakh SHGs with a deposit of over Rs 26,000 crore are covered under the SHG-Bank Linkage Programme.