History of Self Help Group in around 200 words
Answers
SHG is a holistic programme of micro-enterprises covering all aspects of self-employment, organization of the rural poor into self Help groups and their capacity building, planning of activity clusters, infrastructure build up, technology, credit and marketing.
It lays emphasis on activity clusters based on the resources and the occupational skills of the people and availability of markets.
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Self-Help Group refers to self-governed, peer controlled, informal group of people with same socio-economic background and having a desire to collectively perform common purposes. Here poor people voluntarily come together to save whatever amount they can save conveniently out of their earnings, to mutually agree to contribute to a common fund and to lend to the members for meeting their productive and emergent needs.
SHGs have been able to mobilize small savings either on weekly or monthly basis from persons who were not expected to have any savings. They have been able to effectively recycle the resources generated among the members for meeting the emergent credit needs of members of the group.
SHG is a group formed by the community women, which has specific number of members like 15 or 20. In such a group the poorest women would come together for emergency, disaster, social reasons, economic support to each other have ease of conversation, social interaction and economic interaction.
A SHG is an informal association to enhance the member’s financial security as primary focus and other common interest of members such as area development, awareness, motivation, leadership, training and associating in other social inter-mediation programmes for the benefit of the entire community.
Need of Self-Help Group (SHG):
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The very existence of SHGs is highly relevant to make the people of below poverty line hopeful and self-reliant. SHGs enable them to Increase their income, improve their standard of living and status in society. It acts as a catalyst for bringing this section of society to the main stream.
Ultimately, the nation reaps the advantages of socialism.
The Government of India and various state Governments have been implementing various programmes for rural upliftment. However, rural poverty and unemployment still persist in the country. This problem is becoming severe and acute. The available latest statistics relating to the Indian Economy indicates that about 26% of the total population in the country belongs to the rural poor.
Considering the gravity and intensity of the problem, many Voluntary Development Organisations (VDOs) have come forward with different programmes for the rural poor in the country. These agencies undertake various innovative programmes and schemes to address the issues of poverty and unemployment prevailing in our country.
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Among the various programmes “Swarna Jayanti Grama Swarojgar Yojana” (SGSY) is an important one. This programme was launched on 1st April, 1999, at 75: