• Shivaji A. Pawar
• Parvathi Venkatesh

Over the last two decades, Self Help Groups in India have emerged as a major institutional framework in achieving Inclusive Growth by extending micro finance to poor for self-employment activities. Women membership in the formation of SHGs gathered momentum after success stories of the Groups in the southern States of the country. Despite lopsided growth of SHGs across the country, Maharashtra has been considered as one of the states where reasonable contribution is made by SHGs in generating stable income and in building skills in women through creation of self-employment. . Self Help Group enables the members to save, setup and expand credit fund consisting of savings so that members can initiate income generating activities. It also enables the members to acquire assets. In the light of the above, an attempt is made in this paper to underline the potentiality of SHGs towards inclusive growth in Maharashtra by analyzing the differences in income generation of Self Help Group members before and after joining the Group. The paper examines the economic growth of women members after joining Self Help Group on the basis of variable of income in Maharashtra. Primary data were used for the study by selecting 1000 samples from all five administrative regions of Maharashtra. The findings, using the statistical tool of Gini Coefficient, reveals that those women who joined SHG showed improvement in their income. It is observed that SHGs play an important role in achieving regional growth and income generation in the Maharashtra. This paper suggests that SHG helps for the betterment of life of women particularly in the weaker section of the society.

Self Help Groups, Micro Finance, income generation, regional analysis

"A REGIONAL ANALYSIS OF INCOME DISPARITY OF SELF HELP GROUPS IN MAHARASHTRA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 8, page no.926-929, August-2018, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1808136.pdf

"A REGIONAL ANALYSIS OF INCOME DISPARITY OF SELF HELP GROUPS IN MAHARASHTRA", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 8, page no. pp926-929, August-2018, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1808136.pdf