TRANSFER AND

TRANSFER AND
MANAGEMENT OF
MANAGEMENT OF
RURAL
RURAL
TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
RD30002
 A
Presentation on
coop-movement &
self help group
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
 We are indebted to Prof S.C. Mahapatra and Prof
P.K. Bhowmik for providing us the opportunity
and all the necessary help to prepare this
presentation on COOP MOVEMENT & SHG.

Thanking you,
 Ashutosh Swaroop
 Durga Nath Bhardwaj
 (Tuesday batch)
 OBJECTIVES
Organizing groups to support
collective and individual credit
acquisition, as well as formal and
informal skills training can assist
peoples in accessing the capital
necessary to initiate small businesses
and ultimately help build livelihoods
for families and communities.
 INTRODUCTION-COOP
MOVEMENT
Series of organized activities that began in the
19th cent. in Great Britain and later spread to most
countries of the world, whereby people organize
themselves around a common goal, more
specifically to the formation of non-profit
economic enterprises for the benefit of those using
their services.
 CO-
OPERATIVE
MOVEMENT
AND
INDIA
 This is most obvious in the case of India
with 70 percent of its one billion plus people
living in rural areas where the land availability
per person has halved to in the past decade.
The growing livestock population is competing
for natural resources and food with the human
population. A recent government survey in
India found that 40 percent of small farmers
would move out of the agriculture sector if
given a choice.
 A major cause of rural poverty among
small rural producers is their dependence
on rain-fed agriculture. To overcome this
poverty trap for marginal land owners,
tenants and landless workers, major rural
investments are needed in irrigation,
water and soil conservation, land
improvement and introduction of low-
input farming systems as well as non-
farm rural enterprise development in
which the cooperative sector plays a key
role.
 India recently adopted an innovative
approach to poverty alleviation. A
landmark rural employment guarantee
law enacted in 2005 has for the first time
a built-in guarantee of 100 days wage
employment or equivalent in cash, for at
least one member of every below-poverty
line rural household.
 Agricultural cooperatives have played
a major role in India’s Green and White
(dairy) Revolutions, providing income
and employment for tens of millions of
rural poor. There are over 150,000
primary agricultural and credit
cooperatives serving over 157 million
agricultural/rural producers
AGRICULTURE/RURAL
CO-OPERATIVE
DEVELOPMENT
 EMPOWERMENT
Agricultural cooperatives as democratic
member organizations are based upon the
principles of social cohesion, self-help and
equity. In many cases, they provide effective
village-level channels for formal and informal
education for small/marginal farmers,
landless, women, indigenous people and
other vulnerable rural poor, empowering them
for effective participation in local-level
decision-making and leadership roles in their
communities.
 RURAL ENTERPRISE
DEVELOPMENT
Agricultural cooperatives are also rural
enterprises of a special kind where profit
making and share holder ownership do not
dominate membership participation in business
activities. Cooperative members share high
risk in agricultural activities due to adverse
climatic and market conditions; they also share
costs of inputs/raw materials, and engage in
collective marketing efforts and in seeking
improved access to rural services.
 VALUE ADDITION
Agricultural cooperatives facilitate primary
producers in diversifying agriculture and food
production, reducing production and
marketing risks, improve access to production
and rural services. In several commodity
sectors such as dairy, fruit
production/processing, cooperatives have
enabled integration of hundreds of thousands
of small-scale rural producers into large-scale
rural enterprises able to export a broad variety
of products.
 MARKETING CHANNELS
Agricultural cooperatives, by eliminating
‘middlemen’ help reduce transaction costs and
provide a better market price for small
producers; they play an increasingly important
role in providing access to rural finance to
small-scale farm/non-farm rural producers
who often due to lack of adequate collateral
and education are unable to access normal
channels of institutional credit.
 PROVIDERS OF
RURAL SERVICES
In several Asian countries, agricultural
cooperative networks provide linkages to
other cooperative networks in rural finance,
education, health, housing. Several
cooperative networks collaborate with rural
universities, specialized government training
centres in technical and business skills
development for capacity building of different
member categories (women, board members
and managers).
 INFORMATION NETWORKS
What is needed is more systematic
networking between agricultural cooperatives
and specialized government and NGO
partners for information exchange and
capacity building on sustainable farming
systems, food/product safety standards,
innovative marketing strategies, fair trade,
information technologies (IT) to enhance their
business opportunities.
SELF
HELP
GROUP
 INTRODUCTION
Self Help Groups or SHGs represent a
unique approach to financial
intermediation. The approach
combines access to low-cost financial
services with a process of self
management and development for the
women who are SHG members. SHGs
are formed and supported usually by
NGOs or (increasingly) by Government
agencies. Linked not only to
banks but also to wider development
programmes
 CHARACTERISTIC OF
SELF HELP GROUP
SHGs are small informal and
homogeneous groups of not more than 10
members.

 The group should open a savings bank

account with the bank.
The group should form under the
Block officials, local Panchayat
bodies.

The group should maintain simple

basic records such as minute book,
membership register, savings and
credit register and bank passbook.
  While a great number of SHGs have been
initiated by communities themselves, many
of the SHGs are implemented through the
help of an NGO that can provide the initial
•information and support to establish these
groups.
 DESCRIPTION
 Self-help groups are usually informal clubs or
associations of people who choose to come
together to find ways to improve their life
situations. One of the most useful roles for a self-
help group is to provide its members with
opportunities to save and borrow and it can act as
a conduit for formal banking services to reach their
members. Such groups can provide a guarantee
system for members who borrow or they may
develop into small village banks in their own right.
In rural areas self-help groups may be the only way
for people to access financial services .
 FUNCTIONS
SHG is meant to provide mutual
support to the participants by
assisting one another in saving
money, opening up cooperative
banking accounts that help women
and other peoples to build credit with
a lending institution.
To support members through maintaining
consistent contact among group members
to aid the individual’s savings goals.

Supports accountability for ensuring that

the loans are paid back and can continue
to include other members and support
greater access to credit and capital to
those within their community.
 Provide a space which facilitates the
discussion of many issues pertaining to the
community’s socio-economic, educational
and health status.
 BENEFITS

 This process increases confidence among

participants, and help support greater levels
of decision-making status in their society.
This hopefully will encourage members to
participate and contribute in general social
and political matters in their respective
villages. 
 As peoples are supported in building
their credit they in turn are able to apply
for micro-loans geared towards a number
of self-sufficiency based business ventures.
These business can be as diverse as natural
healing clinics, chicken farms and aqua-
culture projects, to silk weaving or any
number of handcraft based ventures.
 Many of the SHGs are implemented
through the help of an NGO that can provide
the initial information and support to
establish these groups. Such information and
support often consists of training people on
how to manage bank accounts to include
deposits, withdrawals and balancing of the
cooperative and individual accounts. Similarly
informal education regarding a number of
possible trades can take place in order to build
up the capabilities of the participants to
function as business owners.
 DRAWBACKS
 Many people are in absolute poverty and the
little that they do save can put a family in an
already precarious financial situation in a worse of
place. It can force them to make tough choices as
whether to purchase necessary goods such as
food, clothing, fuel etc. and risk defaluting on
their micro-loans, or in the case of SHGs hurting
the entire group's ability to take out small loans as
these are dependent upon the entire group's
ability to save and collectively support each other
through generating credit.
 The creation of these businesses often
adds greater levels of work upon women as
they are committed to the SHG and the
creation of their business to support their
income and yet their household duties are
still expected to be met by their husbands. In
these situations the pressures can be
immense to juggle the business, household
chores and the rearing of children.
 CONCLUSION

 Despite some of the draw backs the role

of the SHAG is still a vital and growing
component of bottom-up development,
and hopefully eventuating self-designed
development in the future.
 The SHGs offer one approach to create
associations of support for some of the
most economically marginalized groups
within society. Through the desire of
women and other members of the
community these SHGs can provide an
organized structure for providing
employability and ownership for peoples
otherwise left out.
 The presentation
group

 Ashutosh Swaroop
 (08IE1022)
 Durga Nath Bhardwaj
 (08IE1016)