An Analysis of Poverty and Inequality Among the Members of SHGs in West Bengal, India

Abstract

Economic development in the truest sense remains far from the development targets and millennium development goals in many less developed and developing countries of the world particularly because of the perennial problems of poverty and inequality in the distribution of income and wealth. The trajectory of planned economic development of India has also experienced the said problem. One of the escape routes for the poverty trap particularly in the rural areas of India has been the formation of self-help groups (SHGs) and the provision of microfinance to the SHGs. The present study tries to analyze the intensity of poverty and inequality among the rural households of some of the backward regions of West Bengal. This study indicates that the incidence of poverty remains less among the SHG members in comparison with the non-SHG households in both drought prone and non-drought prone areas of rural West Bengal. Further, the inequalities in the distribution of income and expenditure among the SHG members are also found to be more prominent in non-drought prone areas compared to drought prone areas.