A STUDY ON ROLE OF MICRO FINANCE IN WOMEN EMPOWERMENT

Dr. G. Bhoopathy. Micro-finance interventions are well-recognized world over as an effective tool for poverty alleviation and improving socioeconomic status of rural poor. In India too, micro-finance is making headway in its effort for reducing poverty and empowering rural women. Micro-finance through the network of cooperatives, commercial banks, regional rural banks, NABARD and NGO‟s has been largely supply-driven and a recent approach. Micro finance is provided to all unemployed to have self-employment. The SHGs are provided with adequate loan for the development of the SHGs in all possible ways. The members of the self-help groups are given support and advice even for marketing their products. An attempt has been made to study the role of micro fiancé in women empowerment in Namakkal District. The socio economic status of the members of SHGs and the level of satisfaction of the members in SHGs regarding the support extended by the government and banks through Micro finance in Namkkal district were identified. It was examined from the study that members of SHGs have been empowered after availing micro finance and their skills are improved by getting the training programme.


Dr. G. Bhoopathy.
Micro-finance interventions are well-recognized world over as an effective tool for poverty alleviation and improving socioeconomic status of rural poor. In India too, micro-finance is making headway in its effort for reducing poverty and empowering rural women. Micro-finance through the network of cooperatives, commercial banks, regional rural banks, NABARD and NGO"s has been largely supply-driven and a recent approach. Micro finance is provided to all unemployed to have self-employment. The SHGs are provided with adequate loan for the development of the SHGs in all possible ways. The members of the self-help groups are given support and advice even for marketing their products. An attempt has been made to study the role of micro fiancé in women empowerment in Namakkal District. The socio economic status of the members of SHGs and the level of satisfaction of the members in SHGs regarding the support extended by the government and banks through Micro finance in Namkkal district were identified. It was examined from the study that members of SHGs have been empowered after availing micro finance and their skills are improved by getting the training programme.

Introduction:-
Micro-finance interventions are well-recognized world over as an effective tool for poverty alleviation and improving socioeconomic status of rural poor. In India too, micro-finance is making headway in its effort for reducing poverty and empowering rural women. Micro-finance through the network of cooperatives, commercial banks, regional rural banks, NABARD and NGO"s has been largely supply-driven and a recent approach. Micro finance scheme has been introduced by the central government initially with the view to promote the income sources of the village people by providing financial support to the weaker section particularly in rural parts of the country. Further it was extended to support the SHGs in all parts of the country for the empowerment of the women and to improve the income level of the individual family. The purpose of the micro finance is to provide financial support to the weaker section who leads their normal life below BPL. Micro finance is provided to all unemployed to have self-employment. The SHGs are provided with adequate loan for the development of the SHGs in all possible ways. The members of the self-help groups are given support and advice even for marketing their products. This paper attempts to study the role of micro finance in women empowerment.
Literature review:- Kumar (1997) 1 made a case study of Self-Help Group in the Tirupathi block of Andhra Pradesh. A total of 21 SHGs were selected for this study after a detailed description of the profile of groups and group and members, the author came to the following conclusions; the groups were mostly homogeneous in terms of their socio-economic back ground. This homogeneity contributed to the cohesiveness and solidarity of the members. The saving level was reasonably satisfactory because of low interest rates charged by the banks and the revolving fund. However some groups become passive and defunct. The reasons for this were irregularity in repayment of loan, non-adherence to the norms set by the group and lack of mutual trust and confidence among group members. Gautham and Singh (2001) 2 reported the impact of DWCRA in four districts of Himachal Pradesh. A total of 23 types of different economic activities were being pursued under this scheme, with maximum number of group (126) pursuing milk production activity. In spite of 91 per cent achievement of the target in organizing units of groups under DWCRA, the functional units accounted for only 67.17percent. The reasons for this were improper selection of group activities, lack of co-operation among group members, non-avail ability of raw materials, high cost of raw materials compared to finished product and the lack of local demand and marketing facilities. Sarangi (2003) 3 opined that women-led SHGs in many parts of the country succeeded in bringing the women to the mainstream of decision -making. SHG is also a viable set-up to disburse micro-credit to the rural women and encourage them to enter into entrepreneurial activities. The women-led SHGs in the village of Purushothampur block of Ganjam district of Orissa State have successfully demonstrated how to mobilize and manage thrift, appraise credit needs, maintain linkage with the banks and enforce financial self-discipline. SHGs in this block are tend in" a helping hand to the district administration in different rural development projects ranging from construction of roads to sanitation programmes. (2007) 4 in their study found that most of the members are using loans sanctioned through SHGs for health and education of children and for production-related expenses especially by the disadvantaged. Further, domestic violence was reduced.

Raghav Gaiha and Mani Arul Nandhi
Jothi (2010) 5 opined that SHG plays a pivotal role in improving the both social and economic lives of the members, bring them more respect both domestically and socially. The sample respondents after joining as SHGs member have become very active by becoming full employed in varied activities and thereby earning more. He concluded that the self-help groups contribute substantially in pushing the conditions of the female population up and through that chip in poverty eradication as well.

Objectives of the study:-
The study is focused on the following objectives:  To draw an understanding on the socio-economic status members of SHGs and their knowledge about micro finance.  To measure the level of satisfaction of the members in SHGs regarding the support extended by the government and banks through Micro finance.

Research methodology:-
In the present study an extensive use of both primary and secondary data were collected in order to achieve the objectives of the study. For collecting the primary data field survey technique was undertaken in the study area. The primary data were supplemented by a spate of secondary source of data. The secondary data pertaining to the study was obtained from the journals, library sources and net sources. The area selected for the study is Namakkal, 700 women respondents were selected at random by using convenient sampling method from 70 SHGs operating successfully in Namakkal district. For the purpose of the study a well-structured questionnaire was used and data were collected systematically.

Tools used for analysis:-
The data has been coded, edited and consolidated and then entered into master

Null hypothesis:-
There is no association between opinion about the improvement of skills of the respondents due to training and their satisfaction level about the training. As the calculated value of Chi-square (61.145) is greater than the table for 16 degrees of freedom at 5% level of significance, the null hypothesis is rejected and it is concluded that there is an association between opinion about the improvement of skills of the respondents due to training and their satisfaction level about the training.

Alternative Hypothesis:-
There is an association between opinion about the improvement of skills of the respondents due to training and their satisfaction level about the training.
With a view to find the degree of association between the opinion of the respondents regarding the improvement of skills due to training and response regarding the satisfaction about the training provided by the bank to the members of the self-help group a two way table was prepared and illustrated as below. The above table highlights that the percentage of high response regarding the satisfaction about the training provided to members of the SHGs was opined by the respondents who gave good opinion about the improvement of skills due to the training given to the members of the SHGs as the highest (26.9) and the same was lowest (7.1) by the respondents who have given very poor opinion about the improvement of the skills due to the training. The percentage of medium level response on regarding the satisfaction about the training provided to members of the SHGs was opined as the highest (43.8) by the respondents who gave good opinion about the improvement of skills and the lowest (5.9) by the respondents who have given very poor opinion about the improvement of skills due to the training. On the other hand the percentage of low level response regarding the about the training provided to members of the SHGs was opined as the highest (28.3) by the respondents who have given normal opinion about the improvement of skills due to the training and the lowest was (6.5) among the respondents who gave very poor opinion about the improvement of skills due to training.
In order to find the relationship between opinion of the respondents regarding the improvement of skills due to training given to the members of the SHGs and response regarding the satisfaction about the training provided to members of the SHGs, a chi square test was used and the result of the test is shown in the following table

Conclusion:-
Thus it can be concluded from the above study that microfinance is playing a vital role in the social, psychological as well as economic empowerment of women in the study area. Microfinance loan availment and its productive utilization found to be having a profound role and impact on women empowerment. The empirical findings of the study suggest that microfinance has a profound influence on the economic status, decision making power, knowledge and self-worthiness of women participants of self-help group linkage program in Namakkal district. . It was examined from the study that skills of the members are improved by getting the training programme.