Abstract

For the economic empowerment of women, they depend on self-help groups in rural and urban areas. Thus SHG is a voluntary group formed by homogenous women and it is a holistic program of micro-enterprises covering all aspects of self-employment, organization of the rural poor into SHGs, and their capacity to the planning of activity, technology, building, clusters, infrastructure, credit, and marketing. Telangana State has about 4.35 lakh SHGs as of the end of March 2018. In the Narsampet division, there are about 5690 self-help groups. Financial help is extended by the Central and State Government at 7% interest. Of this, the Center pays 4% and the State government 3%. The financial support to the SHGs is routed through the banks. The SHGs are expected to promote savings, self-employment, relevant skill-building, gender equality, optimum utilization of rural resources, and collective decision making. The group should devise a code of conduct to bind itself because of the fast-changing environment. Savings collected will be the group-specific or corpus fund. Such a corpus fund should be used to advance loans to the members. As such the group develops financial management terms and conditions covering the loan sanction process, repayment schedule & interest rates. The present study examines the financial strength of about 160 groups federated into the Mutually Aided Women Credit Society by considering aggregate savings, credit dispensed, recovery of loans, and overdue loans.