Impact of SHGs on Social Empowerment of Rural Women with Specific Reference to Jorhat District of Assam

Self help groups are voluntary gatherings of persons who share needs or problems among themselves. The present study is a descriptive study of the SHGs. A sample of 60 SHGs consisting of 300 members have been taken to study the various aspects of the SHGs. A multistage purposive cum simple random sampling method was adopted.54.66 per cent of the respondents belonged to the middle aged group followed by 50.33 per cent having land in between 1.0 acre - 4 acres, educated upto HSLC (40.33%). Small scale business like selling agro based items was the major occupation (47 per cent) of the members of SHGs. Rural women occasionally moved from their house specially for social visit, attending bank, and blocks for attending meetings. They deposited their earned money in their own savings account which gives them confidence and increased self respect. Majority of the rural women were empowered to participate in the decision making process and had a medium level of risk bearing abilities (49.33%). Most of them accepted a few important social issues like job reservation for women and punishing drunken husbands, compulsory family planning and inter - caste marriage after joining SHG. The analysis shows that 62.00 per cent rural women had a medium level of self confidence, few of them interacted with outsiders (33.33%) followed by 50 per cent respondents who did not face any family violence in (50%). Majority of the rural women had developed their confidence to express their feelings in front of officials Thus, it can be concluded that the rural women are socially empowered to join any development activities of Governmental schemes after joining SHGs.