• Dr. Debahuti Panigrahi,

Empowering women through Self Help Groups (SHGs) is like causing and feeling a tremor in the core of the social structure to reshape it for sanctioning equal space for women that had learnt to listen for long to the commands of male autonomy. Restructuring and adjusting the social fabric in the basic institutional level to give equal and parallel power to women subsiding male superiority complex and patriarchal system of society seemed almost an impossible task to be accomplished. In this scenario, micro-credit and SHG provide a key not only for the eradication of poverty but also for empowerment of Indian rural women. SHGs provide credit to rural women by making them socially and individually responsible. SHGs have been exceptionally useful in creating the habit of savings among the rural poor and activating it for general good. SHGs help women in sensing the empowerment by providing them with a platform where they could discuss decisively about their social, economic and political conditions but also equipped with resources. Thus, facilitating “a race-in-itself” to transform into “a race-for-itself” that can fight for it’s equal status with men. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of self-help groups (SHGs) in providing an environment for the empowerment of Indian rural women in Chhattisgarh district and to show that women who are able to utilize the opportunities bring about transformative changes at both individual and community level.

Self Help Groups, Micro Credit, Social Intermediation, Gender Discrimination, Poverty, Women Empowerment

"EMPOWERING RURAL WOMEN: A REVIEW OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SELF HELP GROUPS, CHHATTISGARH", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no.811-821, June 2019, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1906Y43.pdf

"EMPOWERING RURAL WOMEN: A REVIEW OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SELF HELP GROUPS, CHHATTISGARH", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.6, Issue 6, page no. pp811-821, June 2019, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1906Y43.pdf