International Journal of Development in Social Sciences and Humanities

Empowerment in the context of women’s development is a way of defining, challenging and overcoming barriers in a woman’s life through which she increases her ability to shape her life and environment. Today, globalization has presented new challenges for the realization of the goal of women’s equality, the gender impact of which has not been systematically evaluated fully. The Government of India and state authorities alike have increasingly realized the importance of devoting attention to the economic betterment and development of women in India. In India, self-help groups represent a unique approach to financial intermediation. Self help groups are novel and innovative organizational setup in India for the women up-liftment and welfare. This paper highlighted the role of self help groups in empowering women and discusses its importance for the economic development of women of the country. The Indian Government adopted the approach of Self Help Groups (SHGs) to uplift the rural women. The empowerment of women through Self Help Groups (SHGs) would lead to benefits not only to the individual woman and women groups but also the families and community as a whole through collective action for development. The book will be highly useful to students of social studies especially Women Studies, Social Work, Sociology, Economics and also to the students and research scholars specializing in Human Development and NGO s and also other functionaries dealing with women. In India, Self Help Group Scheme was initiated by NABARD main rural development body emphasizing self-employment generation for the women living in rural and semi – rural areas. Self-help groups (SHGs) movement has triggered off revolution in the rural credit delivery system in India by proving an effective medium for delivering credit to rural poor