Measurement of Attitudes of Rural Poor Towards SHGs in Bihar, India

Abstract

Self help groups emerged as an effective mechanism for empowerment of rural poor. It is an efficient mode of promoting group action. Initiatives were undertaken at ICAR Research Complex for Eastern Region, Patna (Bihar) to assess the attitude of SHG members in the Bihar state. A Likert type scale consisting of 26 items developed by Meena et al. (2008) was applied for measuring the attitude construct. The survey instrument contained five section namely; socio-economic upliftment, educational and training, marketing and entrepreneurship qualities, technology adoption and participatory research, and, credit aspect. This empirical study indicates that most SHG members had favorable attitude towards SHG activities. This positive attitude of SHG members paves the way for success. Hence, for addressing the issues of rural poverty, enrichment of the system with social capital through empowerment and formation SHGs; provision of financial and credit support; creation of market-driven and decentralized extension system; use of media-mix for technology transfer, informal education at rural level; conduction of need-based training and strong political will need to be emphasized.

Keywords: attitude, self help groups, rural poor

JEL Classification: Q12, Q16