Self Help Groups of Mahalirthittam in Madurai-A Study

Abstract

Self helps Groups of Woman in India have been recognized as an effective strategy for the empowerment of woman. Since the overall empowerment of woman is crucially dependent on economic empowerment woman through these SHGs, work an a range of issues such as health, nutrition, agriculture Forestry etc. Besides income generation activities seeking micro credit, and work towards socio economic development.¹ The Self Helps Groups promote saving among their members and there are pooled together as a corpus found and utilized to meet the needs of its members. Further these savings are supplemented through external resources like loans from the formal credit institutions from the Voluntary agencies like NGO² etc. People of same place form 12 to 20 members join as a group were they can in their economical and social status bring about all the success. The age limit of the members must be between 18-60 years. There are 3,91, 311 SHG’s in Tamil Nadu and 62, 63 Lakhs of Members consist in it. In Madurai 3162 groups are in the hand’s of Mahlirthittam and 2025 groups are in the hand’s of corporation apart from this, there are separate groups that is called as Non-Mahalirthittam groups namely Kalanjiyam this groups are functioning under DHAN Foundation and also some groups in the hands of micro finance institutions. This paper deal with the SHG’s in the hands of Mahlirthittam in Madurai.