EFFICACY OF MICROFINANCE MOVEMENT : A DEA APPROACH TO POSTMORTEM ANALYSIS OF SGSY IN WEST BENGAL

Microfinance movement have been started in India along with other countries of the world to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG), and to give impetus to the all round development of the country. Microfinance includes micro-savings, microcredit, micro insurance, micro-pension and micro-remittance in its entire gamut. Microfinance provides low cost finance and non-financial services to the vulnerable rural poor of the country in order to capacitate them to generate income through their microenterprises, which help them to uplift their financial strength. The new paradigm of microfinance put emphasis on women through Self Help Groups (SHGs) in order to improve their living standard by empowering them in all respect, and operates on the principle of “borrower knows the best”. The development of microenterprises through Self Help Groups is the sine qua non of modern microfinance programme. To provide financial support for the microenterprises, NABARD has taken important initiative by linking SHGs to the Banks in 1992. Taking the cognition of NABARD’s effort, in the same vein, Government of India launched Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) in1999 to make easy access to the subsidised credit for the enterprising women. Millions of SHGs were formed under SGSY around the nation, and now, it is restructured and renamed as National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM). This study will assess the district wise operational efficiency of the programme in West Bengal through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique. The objective of this study is to find out the shortcomings of the programme which provides adequate clue for the effective monitoring of the programme in future.