Selection and Performance of Self-Help Groups in West Bengal: A Case Study

Abstract

Our country is experimenting with Self-Help Groups for over 20 years. After the NABARD, panchayats started experimentation with self-help groups in their own way since l999. Swarojgar Yojana, world’s greatest credit-based poverty alleviation scheme relying on self-help was first announced in 1997 to glorify 50 years of independence. Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), microcredit-based scheme, came into effect from April, 1999. This scheme was planned to promote group loans, encourage small-scale savings and group enterprises to develop agency in some predetermined stages. The District cells and the panchayats worked in cooperation with the local level banks to organize the groups and implement the programme at the local level. Many studies have tried to investigate the progress of the self-help groups and their impact on rural livelihood and female empowerment during the last decade. In our micro-level study, we shall try to probe into the factors which play key role in involving the rural households with the self-help groups. The chapter tried to find out the determinants of association with these groups in two different districts at the village panchayat level on the basis of primary survey. Our findings suggest that not only economic factors but social and political factors play an important role in determining association of rural households to the SGSY programme.