ECONOMIC IMPACT OF MICRO FINANCE ON WOMEN BENEFICIARIES IN KERALA AND CHITTAGONG

Micro finance, a proven tool for empowering poor women by mitigating their extreme poverty, has brought great changes in the women’s living standard. As an alternative source of credit to the poor, micro finance has successfully established the thought that poor are now creditworthy. From its basic criteria to provide small amount of loan to the poor women to implement a number of social development programmes, micro finance is now considered as the tool of women empowerment. The easy access to get loans without collateral helps rural poor, especially women to enter into the income generating activities that has established them as self-dependent human being in the society. The present study assesses the economic impact of micro finance on women beneficiaries in Kerala (India) and Chittagong (Bangladesh). The study reveals that micro finance has a great influence on the economic improvement of the women beneficiaries. Especially, the beneficiaries in Chittagong who were not financially sound. In respect of post micro finance impact, the highest number of beneficiaries in Kerala has achieved the economic empowerment. But when pre and post micro finance improvement (relative increase) is concerned, the beneficiaries in Chittagong have achieved more than what the beneficiaries in Kerala have achieved.