Rural Development-Self Help Group Success Story

Self help groups (SHGs) have been instrumental in women empowerment by enabling them to work together. Members engaged in development activities have the potential to empower them through the capacity building that underpin sustainable agriculture. The findings of the study reveals that women who never used to step outside the four walls of their home is now becoming business women and supplementing their family income. The results indicates that majority of the respondents are young, matriculates, labourers, belongs to SC category, have family size of 4-6 members and earn up to Rs. 65000 per annum. The economic benefits gained from enrolling in the groups are found to be high in terms of selling products individually, understand banking operations to avail credit facility, develop courage to think independently, understand group activity and manage group activities after joining the group. Furthermore the social empowerment of the members in terms of team spirit, talking freely within family, confidence in dealing with people is enhanced. It indicates that self help groups bring economic upliftment, leadership skills in managing the group and inculcate great confidence in the members of selected groups to succeed in their day to day life.


INTRODUCTION
defines SHGs as "small, economically homogenous affinity groups of rural poor, voluntarily formed to save and mutually contribute to a common fund to be lent to its members as per the group members' decision". Most SHGs in India have 10 to 20 members, who can be either only men, or only women, or only youth, or a mix of these. As women's SHGs have been promoted by a wide range of government and nongovernmental agencies, they now make up 90% of all SHGs. As Indian women do not generally have the same opportunities to migrate for wage work as men due to social obligations and taboos, it is particularly important for women to improve employment and income earning opportunities in situ, and in a way that is compatible with their role in child care.
Self-help groups are mostly informal group where members pool savings as a thrift deposit. The groups have common perception of need and improvise towards collective activity. Many such groups formed around specific production activities, promote saving among members and use the pooled resources to meet the various credit needs of members. Where funds generation is low in the initial phases due to low saving capacities, this is supplemented by external resources. Thus self help groups have been able to provide primitive banking service to its members that are cost effective, inflexible and without defaults, based on local requirement. Self help group have also evolved their own characteristics of functioning. Self-help group approach, in the recent years has been rightly recognized as the best way of socio-economic empowerment of people living below poverty line in India and elsewhere. Self help groups can act as an empowerment resource centers for the women members, percolating the benefits to the society. Empowerment of women through self help groups has benefited not only the individual women but also her family and community as a whole. It is true that the poor status of Indian women in villages can be transformed with the help of self help groups. SHGs are the real pathfinders in the life of rural Indian women [1][2][3].

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The present study is conducted in Punjab state. The group named 'Sada Shiv Modern' is purposively selected as group is functioning very well and able to get a grant of Rs. 77 Lakh by the Chief Minister of Punjab and act as role model for other functioning groups of Punjab. The data is collected with the help of interview schedule and analysed with the help of frequency and percentages.

Socio-personal Characteristics of the Respondents
The comprehensive information about traits of the respondents pertaining to age, education, occupation, caste, family type, family size and family income, social participation, extension contacts and mass media exposure are presented in Table 1. The probe into data reveals that majority of the members (56.67%) belongs to the age group of 25-35 years. It might be due to young women are energetic and having strong urge to achieve their goal, there-in participating actively in the group. One-third respondents belongs to the age group of 36-45 years while 10% respondents belongs to the age group of 46-55 years.
A scrutiny of the data reveals that more than 70% of the family members of the group are labourers whereas 20% respondents are artisans (painters, carpenters etc.).
Caste is categorised into three categories i.e. General, Scheduled caste (SC) and Backward class (BC). More than 2/3 rd members of group belongs to SC category as women are poor and join the group to improve their economic conditions These results are in conformity with those of [12,13]. About 17% and 10% respondents belongs to BC and General category.
An overview of the family type reveals that majority (74%) of the respondent's belongs to nuclear family whereas 20% of the respondents belongs to joint family. It is attributed to the fact that joint family is losing its importance and people are more likely to live independently. Moreover, farms in Punjab are increasingly and getting smaller mainly due to division of land by inheritance, expansion of town and cities, industrial development and breaking of larger traditional family structure into smaller. The results are in track with the findings of [14][15][16][17]. Regarding family size, two-third members have family size of 4-6 members while one-third members have family size of 6-8 members. The findings of [18] also found family size of 6-8 members.
The data reveals that majority of members (46.66%) of group earn up to Rs.65 thousand per annum. This may be due to the reason that most of the members of self help groups belongs to poor families. The results are supported by the findings of [19]. One-third respondents earn in the range of Rs. 6500-110000/-. Only 20% respondents earn more than Rs.110000/-per annum.
A scrutiny of the data in Table 2 indicates that mostly 60% of members of sada shiv modern have high level of social participation because most of the respondents are member of Panchayat, Mahila mandals, NGOs and Welfare societies. The results are supported with the findings of [15,20] who reported that majority of the respondents had high level of social participation.
Frequency of contact made by the respondents (66.66%) with the extension personnel is 'medium' in the group whereas about 17% members is found to be 'high' and 'low' for seeking information regarding self help groups. Mass media exposure to gain information regarding development work being carried out by different agencies and groups is found to be medium (60%) followed by high (26.67%) and low (13.33%) respectively.
General information of Sada Shiv Modern is presented in Table 3 shows that Sada Shiv Modern (2003)  As head of the family is required to manage the home, similarly a good leader is essential in smooth functioning of the self help group.
Regarding the selection of leader in the group, the leader is selected for a period of two years with the consent of all the members of the group. Conducting meetings at specified time and venue is of crucial importance. Properly conducted meetings by the leader produce positive results and good decisions. Meetings are conducted at panchayat room. Members absent consecutively for three meetings are expelled out from the group. The record of their meetings is found to be complete and upto date.
There are regular transactions between the bank and the group. The group deposits their savings every month and withdrew them when required. With financial support from the banks, the Self help group diversified from traditional agriculture and took up income generating activities. The group take loan for purchase of raw materials and pay the installments of loan regularly. Microcredit is a small financial loan made to povertystricken individuals seeking to start their own business. Micro-credit not only help rural people attain improved economic status but also lead to social cohesion and women's empowerment. The group pool a monthly saving of Rs.100 and re-lend within group on rotational and need basis at 2 per cent rate of interest.
Sada Shiv Modern participates in various Kisan melas and get award of honour from State Level Model Agency, Punjab and National Horticulture Mission, Hoshiarpur. For its excellent performance in exhibition held at Delhi, the group is awarded a grant of Rs.77 Lakh by the Chief Minister of Punjab. [2] reveals that timely provision of grants and aids helps build adequate infrastructure that would eventually streamline various activities of groups. At present, the group is in progress of building infrastructure in Talwara district of Hoshiarpur which is a big achievement for all the members of SSM group.
Challenges of the group may be lack of full support from family, inadequate support from Government/ Banks/ Financial institutions, lack of stability of group members, marketing problems, lack of entrepreneurial/ income generating trainings.
The training attended by the members of sada shiv modern group presented in Table 4 reveals that majority (66.67%) of the members of the group attended training on 'women empowerment through income generating activities' conducted by Shubh Karman Society followed by 46.66 and 33.33 percent who attended training on preparation of pickles and preparation of squashes respectively conducted by KVK, Gurdaspur.
The perusal of data given in Table 5 reveals that a large majority of the respondents (93.33%) join the group to supplement family income and for getting economic opportunities. It indicates that promotion of self help groups provide employment to large number of people for economic upliftment. Further members join the group for easy access to credit (66.67%), to overcome exploitation from money lenders (53.33%) and to develop social ties (50%). Findings of [9, 19,21] are in line with the present study who reported that members joined the groups for family support, to develop habits of savings, for employment opportunities, to avail credit facility thus improving financial conditions of the family.

Economic Empowerment of Women Self Help Groups
An overview of the monthly income in Table 6 reveals that about half of the respondents increase their income in the range of Rs.1000-1500 per month before and after joining the group while one-fourth respondents increase their income in the range of Rs.500-1000 (26.67%) and Rs.1500-2000 (23.33%) per month before and after joining the group. Sada Shiv Modern group is functional and grown up enough for applying continuous efforts to organise various entrepreneurial activities. The results are in consonance with findings of [9, 19,22]. As regards to the mobilization of financial resources, savings has been given importance by all members of the group. Monthly savings of the group has been increased before and after joining the group. As many as 40% of members has increased monthly savings to the tune of Rs. 50-100 while nearly 37 per cent of members has increased monthly savings to the tune of Rs. 100-150. The results of the study pointed out that the incremental income not only enhances the productive expenditure of family but also promote the savings. The findings are in tune with study conducted [23] who observed perceptible changes in living standard of SHG's members in terms of increase in income and savings as well.
An investigation regarding economic empowerment in Table 7 further reported that a large majority (93.33%) of the members have received higher price of their products instead of selling individually while major portion (80%) have developed ability to understand banking operations after joining the group. The findings of [24,25] found that the family expenditure has increased due to positive change in the self help group member's income. It is further depicted from the data in Table 7 that one-third members has increased the use of milk intake and could spare time for teaching child at home instead of sending to tuition.
Managing the group is a special art, important for effective working of the groups. Managerial empowerment of members of self help groups is presented in Table 8. For measuring managerial empowerment, various aspects are studied. Based on the opinion given by the members of self help group. The data indicates that very high   Increase use of milk intake 10 33.33 5.
Ability to understand banking operations 24 80.00 6.
Ability to go independently for market 28 93.33 7.
Received higher price for products 28 93.33 Contributed money towards 8.
Purchased mobile phone 3 10.00 *Multiple response  various activities of groups such as acquiring finance, indentifying raw materials, marketing the produce (83.33%) and enhance the ability to take risk (80%). It shows that all these groups are actively involved in management process and are responsible for different activities of the group.
It is quite clear from the data placed in Table 9 that majority of the respondents reports that team spirit (96.67%), confidence in dealing with people (953.33%), confidence in talking within family (86.66%), ability to aspired for a better future (83.33%) and develop social relationships (80%) has been increased as socialization in small groups provides opportunities to express freely, develop team spirit, change the attitude of member that are socially acceptable thereby increasing self confidence among the members of self help groups. The results are in track with the findings of [11,18,26] who also reported that self confidence of members of self help groups is improved after joining the group. A small change is observed regarding organizing social functions (3.33%) and social recognition (6.67%).

CONCLUSION
The self help group is engaged in different entrepreneurial activities that increased their income and developed habits of monthly saving in a group for interloaning. The leaders plays a great role for smooth functioning of the group like conducting meetings, record keeping, loan repayment etc. The case study allowed for indepth observations within a real life context that enlightened their status and innovative techniques followed by them. These facts can be facilitated in forming, managing and evaluating the group. The promoting agencies also play an active role in facilitating and designing the group activities its development and sustenance, taking into consideration the factors in the process of group development. The study further highlights that majority of the members of all the self help groups have increased their income and savings in the range of Rs. 1000-1500 and Rs. 50-100 per month for the economic upliftment. The other economic benefits availed by the members from joining the group are received higher price for marketing the product collectively and understanding of banking operations. Among the managerial empowerment, courage to think and act independently, understand goal of group and realize their full potentials emerge as the major aspects derived by the respondents. It may be due to large contribution by all the members in group activities. It could be further indicated from the study that social empowerment in relation to team spirit, confidence in dealing with the people and talk freely within family are also promoted. The economic, managerial and social aspects of self help groups are important for evaluating progress of any self help groups and these three are inter-related with each other and cumulative effects of these aspects need to be taken into consideration.