Potential vis-à-vis Achievement under SHG-Bank Linkage programme An analysis of priority states in India

The SHG-Bank Linkage Programme (SHG-BLP) in India was conceived to fill the gap existing in the formal financial network by extending the outreach of banking to the poor in an affordable way. The programme which was initially started as pilot project has now become a movement throughout the country over the period of two decades, covering around 10 crore poor households. Notwithstanding the remarkable progress, geographically there has been a skewed development of SHG-BLP. There is wide regional disparity both in terms of the spread of SHGs and amount of loan outstanding to these groups. In order to overcome unbalanced geographical growth, NABARD in 2005 identified 13 priority states accounting for 70% of India s poor for special efforts. However, even after 5 years of special efforts not much have been achieved. In fact the share of these 13 states together in number of SHGs credit linked with banks declined marginally from 39 percent during 2004-05 to 36 percent in 2009-10. Therefore, keeping the slow progress of SHG-BLP in mind in these states, the book examines the reasons for slow progress and assessing scope for healthy growth under the programme.