Covid-19 and its impact on SHGs in Kerala: A study on the Economical and Financial impact of the pandemic on SHGs

Abstract

Abstract: Pandemics, in general, are more than just a significant public health problem; they often cause devastating socioeconomic and political crises in the affected countries. COVID-19 stands for corona, VI for virus, D for disease, and 19 marks the year of its occurrence, as hinted by the name. Corona virus is a single-stranded RNA virus with an average diameter of 80-120 nanometers. The first contemporary COVID-19 pandemic was reported in December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, with the majority of cases traced back to a seafood wholesale market (Huang et al., 2020). Since then, the disease has swiftly spread over the world, eventually affecting every continent except Antarctica. The World Health Organization has declared it a pandemic.COVID-19, apart from becoming the greatest threat to global public health of the century, is being considered as the largest disruptor in the social and economic achievement. This paper brings the sufferings of Women Self Help Groups during the pandemic and its challenges. It primarily focuses on the various aspects of economic as well as the financial impact occurs due to the outbreak of COVID-19, and also to analyze the policies that have been announced so far by the central government and the Reserve Bank of India to upgrade the economic stun and put forward a set of policy recommendations for specific sectors. Keywords: Self Help Group, Economic Impact, contagions.