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Since Independence in 1947, the Government of India and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) have made concerted efforts to provide the poor with access to credit. Despite the phenomenal increase in the physical outreach of formal credit institutions in the past several decades, the rural poor continue to depend on informal sources of credit. Institutions have also faced difficulties in dealing effectively with a large number of small borrowers, whose credit needs are small and frequent and their ability to offer collaterals is limited. Besides, cumbersome procedures and risk perceptions of the banks left a gap in serving the credit needs of the rural poor.
This led to a search for alternative policies, systems and procedures, saving and loan products, other complementary services and new delivery mechanisms that would fulfil the requirements of the poor. It is in this context that micro credit has emerged as the most suitable and practical alternative to the conventional banking in reaching the hitherto unreached poor population.
Micro finance is the provision of a broad range of financial services such as deposits, loans, payments, money transfers, and insurance to the low-income households and their micro enterprises. The basic purpose of micro finance is to provide access to financial assistance, including credit to the poor to enable them to start/expand micro enterprises to break out of poverty. Micro credit enables the poor people to be thrifty and helps them in availing the credit and other financial services for improving their income and living standards.
The micro credit programme, which was formally heralded in 1992 with a modest pilot project of linking around 500 Self-help Groups (SHGs), has made rapid strides in India exhibiting considerable democratic functioning and group dynamism. The micro credit programme in India is now the largest in the world. The SHG-Bank Linkage Programme was launched in 1992 as a flagship programme by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD). The Programme envisages organisation of the rural poor into SHGs for building their capacities to manage their own finances and then negotiate bank credit on commercial terms.
This book contains 45 papers contributed by scholars in the field of micro finance. These have been categorised into the following 5 theme parts.
? Micro Finance: General Observations
? Micro Finance, Self-help Groups (SHGs) and Financial Inclusion
? Micro Finance, Poverty Alleviation and Empowerment of Women
? Technical Aspects of Micro Finance
? Micro Finance: Case Studies in India and Abroad
The volume is designed to contribute to the existing body of literature available on micro finance. The work is fairly replete with inspiring and enlightening matter and hence it will commend itself to all categories of readers, particularly academicians, researchers, government functionaries, teachers and students of economics, commerce and business management.
ISBN - 9788177081671
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Pages : 628
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