Socio-Economic Upliftment of Rural Women Through SHGs

The study aimed to assess socio-economic upliftment of rural women through Stree Shakti Project in Bangalore rural district of Karnataka. Stree shakti project is centrally sponsored and facilitated by state Government and NGO in SHG mode. The study was based on the data collected from 60 members of stree shakti group (SSG) and 30 non-members. The result showed that, SSG members actively participated in social action programmes and meetings regularly. Socio-economic characteristics across members and non-members were compared taking age, family type and size, caste, education, Institutional participation, extension participation, occupation, ownership of livestock, consumption expenditure, cropping pattern and crop productivity as variables. Members of SSG were found to be better off in socio-economic aspects than their counterparts in non-members. Loan borrowed and repayment was found to be comparatively higher for SSG members than for non-members. Based on participatory wealth ranking, economic position of SSG members was found to be better (70%) than non-members (43%). Proportion of SSG members belonging to high empowerment category was more (51%) than that in non-members (20%).