Measuring the Impact of Microfinance on Economic Enhancement of Women: Analysis with Special Reference to India

Abstract

Enhancing economic opportunities among the self-help groups (SHG), women through micro-credit is considered to be a major resource. The aspiration is to build resilient livelihoods through SHGs for graduating into small enterprises through efficient microfinance outreach. It is the dream objective with the efficient SHG–bank linkages to be acheived. Previously, SHGs were focused only on saving skills, but now the emphasis is to enhance economic opportunities through exposure to income-generating activities and build confidence to earn and handle money. In India, few states with a higher level of microfinance outreach are the states with relatively high levels of economic enhancement. In this facet, the methodological aspects of the journey of microfinance towards unleashing the power of women in India is systematically analysed, and the state-wise analysis of women’s economic enhancement performance is examined. In the light of empirical evidence, a wide variation in the outreach of microfinance intervention to the poor women is observed across the regions of the country. Women’s empowerment is seen as the progressive index for development. Across India, only 11 states have women empowerment index more than 1, while the remaining states score lower than 1. The strategy is to train and promote talented women to establish micro-enterprises for earning recurring income. For understanding the status of women across the country the mean analysis between the regions was done using two variables. The results confirm that the southern and eastern regions lead in dispersion (MD1) of funds, whereas microfinance access (MD2) is dominant in southern and central regions, indicating relatively high levels of economic enhancement. It is, thus, assumed that microfinance in true spirit can be a useful tool for achieving vibrant growth by narrowing the non-performing assets (NPAs) of the SHGs and channelizing the resources into micro-level planning and training for self-sustenance.