Page 1 of 13
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at
http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
e-ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 02 Issue 9
September 2016
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 1
Financial Growth in Self-help Group’s Internal Lending: A
Case Study from Andhra Pradesh
Dr Shankar Chatterjee1 & Dr. V.V. Rao2
1 Professor & Head (CPME) National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayti Raj, Hyderabad,
India ,
2
Joint Director of Fisheries, Vishakhapatnam, Govt. of Andhra
Pradesh, India,
email <shankarjagu@gmail.com> email <vvrkkd@yahoo.com>
Abstract:
The formation and nurturing of self-help group
(SHG) has facilitated rural women to improve
their economic life to a great extent. The SHG
approach is quite popular across India in
general and in Andhra Pradesh in particular (a
province with 0 .16 million square kilometers
area with 50 million populations according to
2011 census), as around 110 lakh of women in
Andhra Pradesh were benefitted through SHG.
Keeping in mind the development of SHG, in
East Godavari district’s coastal villages with
the fisher women’s family, SHGs have been
formed for their social and economic
development and observed that around 20,000
rural families have been benefitted by
borrowing and repaying SHG’s loan. Even
many women borrowers even borrowed even
30/40 times also. To get an idea about the
functioning of SHGs formed and nurtured
under Godavari Mahasamakhya (GMS) a
study was carried out in March 2014 by
visiting the area vis-à-vis interacting with the
officials and beneficiaries (all women). It was
observed that if illiterate/ semi literate women
were properly guided then their economic fate
would improve to a great extent.
Key words: Below Poverty Line (BPL),
Loan, Godavari Mahasamakhya (GMS), Self- help group (SHG) and Repayment.
Full paper
With the formation and development of
Self-help group, the buzz word SHG,
(henceforth SHG will be used), economic
improvement can be made to poor /below
poverty line families (BPL). The SHG
approach is quite popular across India in
general and in Andhra Pradesh in particular (a
province with .16 million square kilometers
area with 50 million populations, according to
2011 census), as around 110 lakh of women in
Andhra Pradesh were benefitted through SHG.
Keeping in mind the development of SHG, in
East Godavari district’s coastal villages with
Page 2 of 13
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at
http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
e-ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 02 Issue 9
September 2016
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 2
the fisher women’s family SHGs have been
formed for their social and economic
upliftment. Pertinent to mention that fishing
community means those households who eke
out their livelihood through fishing - marine
fishing, crab catching, fish processing, selling
etc. In East Godavari district (around 11000
square kilometers area and 5.2 Million
populations as per 2011 census); fisherwomen
have formed SHG with 10-12 women with
equal socio-economic standards in all coastal
villages. After forming SHG, 20-30 SHGs in
the village formed Village Organisation (VO)
and all the VOs in a mandal (mandal means
cluster of villages) together formed Mandal
Samkhya(MS i.e. Mandal Federation) ) and
finally at the district level ( cluster of mandals)
federated as Confederation under the banner of
Godavari Mahasamakhya, popularly known as
GMS (Chatterjee & Rao, 2013).
It is observed that little saving of a
SHG member can pile up her amount to a great
extent which in future can be used for
productive purposes. To get a thorough idea in
this regard financial growth of SHG member is
presented in the following table (table-1). For
attaining, sustainability and maturity 20 years- period has been taken into account depicting its
financial status. The field studies carried out
by the authors have revealed that the self-help
groups (SHGs) formed with the women are
better managed as their collective savings are
ploughed back as investment by rotating
among the members by extending loan. The
SHG members can also borrow money from
different banks. According to an estimate in
2003, little more than 7 lakh SHGs borrowed
more than Rs.20 billion as loan from different
banks benefitting more than 1 crore people.
Delinquencies on these loans were less than 5
per cent. In spite of all these sustainability of
SHGs was matter of concern (Ajai Nair/ e
library, world bank.Org).
In case of Godavari Mahasamakhya
(GMS) while carrying out the study it was
observed that all the SHGs were functioning
meticulously for more than a decade. Initially,
altogether 21,031 families were identified
through Participatory Identification of Poor
methodology and out of that, 19,733 families
were organized in 1781 SHGs and 1298
families were discarded that is not taken into
account to organize in SHG because of several
criteria interalia of which included single man,
old age, full time migration etc. However, by
forming SHG all the members, most of them
from below Poverty Line (BPL) families, have
been benefitted. In fact GMS is the part of
SHG-federation of women working for the
upliftment of rural women by forming and
developing SHG at the village level, then at
mandal level (mandal means cluster of
villages) and finally at District level which
means cluster of mandals.
Page 3 of 13
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at
http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
e-ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 02 Issue 9
September 2016
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 3
Study period:
To get an idea about the functioning of
SHGs under Godavari Mahasamakhya (GMS)
as study was carried out in March 2014 by
visiting the area vis-à-vis interacted with the
officials and beneficiaries (all women). It was
observed that if illiterate/ semi literate women
were properly guided then their economic fate
would improve to a great extent. To get an idea
an attempt has been made to depict an
individual member’s gain by saving small
amount and lending it at the rate of 8 percent
per year among the members. The following
table is applicable to all the SHGs in general
and the data are based on calculation to show
financial growth of a SHG member. The
following is a projection only and can be
applicable data anywhere I the world based on
local currency.
