Constraints Perceived by Self-help Groups and Assessing Their Impact on Promotion of Entrepreneurial Skills in Mewat District of Haryana

Abstract

Self-Help Groups (SHGs) play an important role in empowering and economic development of society, especially for the powerless and poor rural community. Empowerment of rural community by developing entrepreneurial skills is the only solution to lower down these inequalities. Involvement of societies’ poor community in income generating activities helps to empower them economically, but it is difficult for them to start up a new enterprise alone due to lack of finance, self-confidence, etc. The district Mewat was selected purposively for study as it has the highest number of working women SHGs. Total sample size of 100 respondents was taken for collecting the data. Majority of the respondents had medium level of economic motivation, decision making ability and risk orientation. SHGs gave high impact on economic development of the respondents’, followed by the socio-cultural, legal/political, infrastructure/educational levels, family/interpersonal and psychological status. The members of SHGs should be given training on various income generating activities which have demand in the local market. Exposure visits should be arranged for them to generate a greater impact on the quality of product produced by beneficiaries who will help in increasing their knowledge and improve their skills. The major constraints faced by the respondents in effective functioning of SHG were the price problem, delay in getting loan, improper demand supply chain commodities, marketing and transportation problems.