ABSTRACT
The Self-Help Group (SHG) Bank Linkage Programme is nearing two decades of existence. The premises on which the programme has been built are that the groups will manage on their own after the initial capacity is built; the self-help promoting institutions (SHPIs) will build the capacity of the groups, link them to the banks and scale down their involvement. Inter-group lending, ability to negotiate with higher-level structures and greater bargaining power were the reasons for which informal SHG networking was initiated by non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In terms of governance and writing of books of accounts, non-federation SHGs exhibited better quality as compared to federation SHGs. For each sample federation, ten SHGs under the federation and ten SHGs outside the federation have been studied to identify their differences in terms of the quality of SHGs based on critical rating index (CRI) developed by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).
