Micro Financing Regulation and Women Empowerment

Abstract

India has achieved phenomenon economic growth in the past decade, but found lacking in the achievement of targets fixed under millennium development goals by 2015. These development goals have fully acknowledged the incredible role of women in the system, and prompted the policymakers to address the gender issues on every front be it economic, political and social. In this spirit, the empowerment of women has been well considered in the recent literature for making the present systems smoother. The recent initiative of Indian Government in the form of launching a “Women Bank” seems a remarkable step in the direction of women empowerment. However, it raises various questions related to the lending to women and women run businesses, supporting women self-help groups, financial inclusion, etc. There are various measures for women empowerment, but present study is an attempt to explore the existing credit facilities for women in particular through self-help groups. The study aims to highlight key legal provisions in this direction and tries to address the monitoring and regulatory aspect in particular, as the importance of financial regulations at macro level has been widely pronounced by the policymakers for stable financial system.