Role of Microfinance and Women Empowerment in Madurai District, Tamil Nadu

The key elements in empowerment are enabling and providing power and they reinforce each other. Women’s empowerment is a multifaceted concept that extends to the economic, social, cultural, political and psychological aspects of women’s life. The major objectives of the study are to study the socio economic impact of women SHGs on group members and to know the role of SHGs in providing rural credit. Total 50 women were interviewed. 10 SHGs of were selected by simple random sampling method. As far as the selection of group members is concerned, five members were deliberately selected from each group. The study is purely descriptive. In order to achieve the objective of poverty eradication, every poor person should have easy access to credit for starting small economic activities based on local resources. However by 1970, the limitations and the critique of the welfare approach became obvious and resulted in the development of a number of alternative approaches based on equity, poverty alleviation, efficiency, and empowerment. Microfinance is not merely a financial business, but is a strategy or tool for empowerment of women particularly the poor. The microfinance concept when coordinated with the SHG lending system, those people who have been deprived of credit, could have their fair share of credit.