Women’s Mobility Through SHG Participation: A Study in Cuttack

It is often argued, the status of women in India has always been one of subjugation, suffering and exploitation in many ways. Be it in politics, employment or education, women continue to lag behind men. Of course, as one observes, nothing remains constant for ever. Things change over time. Women in large number are coming frontward and joining all realms of public sphere thereby competing with men on equal footing. Further, they have begun to take care of their own life and also of their family. There has been no dearth of initiatives on the part of the government of India aimed at women’s development. SHG is one such initiative that seeks to make women capable of self-expression and self-realization in some way or the other. The present paper focuses precisely on the role of SHGs in women’s lives. It examines the role of SHGs in women’s life in line with the following respects: women’s social life, income generation, skilling, challenges they encounter and the like. With the pursuit of exploratory design, simple random sampling has been used for eliciting the desired information by taking a sample size of 50. Five SHGs have been chosen for the purpose. It is found that SHGs have been playing a very important role in women’s mobility: in enabling them to generate their own income, raising their earning capacity, enhancing their confidence and promoting their savings.