| Self-Help Group (SHG) is a programme implemented in Tamil Nadu about 12 years back by Sewa Bharati. After a decade it has become a silent revolution of economic empowerment and socio-political system of the State. Since 1999, Sewa Bharati has been working in this micro credit delivery system, which has attracted the attention of the entire nation. To start with the scheme was introduced for women but now it is getting popularity among men too. Sewa Bharati alone is guiding more than 4,000 women SHGs and 400 men SHGs throughout the State.
The scheme
She is nothing but a small cooperative unit comprising of 20 or lesser number of people. They are organised in a group with a name and three office bearers who manage the group and maintain the accounts and bank operations. Each member is made to save money on a regular basis and the collected saving money is given as loan to the members at a nominal interest. The entire transaction is transparent and properly audited. Members are eligible for financial assistance from banks or any other financial institution. The interest on this financial assistance is very low so that the members of the group get rid of their high interest borrowings. The members of groups are encouraged to start their own business or production units so that they can earn profit. For this purpose banks are readily extending advances with appropriate subsidies.
It has become a regular scene in almost every village in Tamil Nadu. The remotest Vanvasi village in the Western Ghats is not spared. Women sitting in a circle as if they are playing the famous Passing the parcel game. It is nothing but the weekly meeting of women SHG, held on the same day of every week, mostly held in the afternoons. For the members of the group the meeting is more important than their favourite TV serials, because it is a path to self-reliance. All the days of dependence have gone and the SHG women have regained the glory of Vedic period. For, the SHG scheme is like a Kalpataru-the epic tree that is capable of giving everything the owner needs. The coming generations will never fail to worship the inventor of this twenty-member wonder machine.
Economically described as the micro-credit delivery system, the SHG scheme is a system, leading to the best form of savings one could have, the best loan facility one could avail, and the best way to improve economic esteem. The interest, the members of the SHG pay for their loans, is the profit they get when the group ripens. In addition SHGs empower women, enlighten them intellectually, and organise them to avail the advantage of functioning as a group. Without SHGs these women might not have excelled the techniques of banking-depositing and withdrawing money and dealing with the negotiable instruments like cheques, promissory notes, etc. The SHG scheme has emerged as an invincible programme to reap the best out of even an uneducated rural or Vanvasi woman, and has attained a culminating point even exceeding the forethoughts and visions of the founding fathers of the scheme.
In a village called Thirparappu, SHG was formed by Sewa Bharati, which comprised of 18 women belonging to one particular caste and two members from another caste. The caste association of that village advised the women of their caste to remove the women belonging to the other caste and run the group. They refused bluntly and firmly. The caste association tempted them with an interest-free loan of one lakh rupees to the group to remove the two women belonging to the other caste. The SHG members turned down this offer and defied any discrimination in the name of caste among them. This trend is getting momentum among the SHG members with amity and benevolence.
Organised mode of operation strengthens the society. It has always been a difficult task to organise women of the society but the SHG scheme has made this dream come true. In a remote Vanvasi village called Kodithuraimalai, SHG women resolved to execute a noble idea. After every weekly meet all the members gathered to work in the farm of one member of the SHG without any payment. The owner of the land offered them lunch and evening tea. The next week the same activity happened in the farm of another member. This rotation of work is carried out in the farm of all the members in a regular turn. The resultant yield of self-reliance is promising both materialistically and socially.
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