October - December 2012 - National Institute of Rural Development

Social Mobilisation, Savings Habit and Access to Credit for the Poor ... 509in the districts is lower than the nationalaverage of ` 44000 per group under normalSHGs and ` 48000 for SGSY groups (Srinivasan,2008).The foregoing discussion reveals thatthe SHGs were instrumental for mobilising alarge number of poor into groups anddeveloping savings habit and gaining accessto credit from financial institutions includingcommercial banks and cooperatives. A largenumber of members (nearly 30-40 per cent)were yet to receive any loan except the smallloans from their group savings. SHGs' abilityto provide credit access to its members isconstrained by its ability to mobiliseresources. Even though the groups areinstrumental in bringing credit access tomembers, the quantum of credit is very lowcompared to the requirements of the poor.The cumulative per capita availability of creditis very low at the level of ` 500-1500 whichis insufficient to bring any significant changein their family. Majority of the groups wereconstrained by the lack of availability offinancial resources required for on-lendingamong the members. Bank linkage is ofcrucial importance to mobilise financialresources. At present the bank linkage inmajority of SHGs is limited only to theopening of the bank account in the name ofthe group and depositing the member’ssavings with the bank. Over the years, onlyone-third of the groups were linked to banks.The bank linkage needs to be graduated to ahigher level, where the banks provide creditto these groups in multiples of the group’ssavings with the bank. One of the limitationsin the bank linkage is the weak internalsystem of the groups. Even though a fairshare of SHGs in the districts had overcomethe initial difficulties and survived over theyears attaining some level of stability, theseSHGs need further support for strengtheningtheir internal system.References1. AMAS(2007), Self-Help Groups in India - A Study of the Lights and Shades, Hyderabad,Andhra Pradesh Mahila Abhivridhi Society.2. Basu, P(2006), Improving Access to India’s Poor, Washington D C, The World Bank.3. Bhatia, N. (2007), Revisiting Bank Linked Self-Help Groups – A Study of Rajasthan State,Reserve Bank of India Occasional Paper, Mumbai, Reserve Bank of India.4. CENDERET (2004), Women Empowerment Through Self-help : A Case Study of CENDERETIntervention, CENDERET, Xavier Institute on Management, Bhubaneswar, (Unpublisheddocument).5. Chen, R. and Carr, M. M. (1992), Speaking Out : Women’s Economic Empowerment, London,Intermediate Technology Publications.6. Choudhary, A M R., Mahmood, M and Abed, F H. (2003), ‘Credit for the Rural Poor : The Caseof BRAC in Bangladesh’, In Malcolm Harper (ed), Microfinance : Evolution, Achievementsand Challenges, UK, ITDG Publishing, pp 121-131.7. Ghate, P.(2006), Microfinance in India : State of the Sector Report-2005, New Delhi, SagePublication.8. Government of Odisha, (2004), Human Development Report, Government of Odisha, Planningand Co-ordination Department.Journal of Rural Development, Vol. 31, No. 4, October - December : 2012