SGSY : How much Beneficial across Socio-Religious Communities?

The paper analysed the impact of 'Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY)', a government sponsored micro-finance programme, on 'food expenditure', 'expenditure on temptation good', 'expenditure on children's education and health', 'business expenditure' and 'profit' across different castes, creeds and religious beliefs. Murshidabad district of West Bengal, India, was chosen as the field of investigation. During the survey stratification was done in terms of social hierarchy and religious beliefs. These are Upper Caste Hindus (UC); Other Backward Castes (OBC); Scheduled Castes (SC) and Muslims. Taking together they are called socio- religious communities (SRCs). To remove selection bias we used 'treatment effect model'. The paper reveals that participation in SGSY programme decreased 'food expenditure' across all SRCs significantly except Muslims. Borrowing from the SGSY programme has significant negative impact on 'expenditure on temptation good' for the households of UC and OBC communities. The influence is negative but insignificant for Muslim-programme participating households. However, participation in the SGSY programme increased expenditure on temptation good for SCs, though insignificantly. Borrowing from SGSY-run self-help group (SHG) enhanced spending on children's education and health across all SRCs, but significantly for UC and OBC. 'Business expenditure' and 'profit' increased significantly due to programme participation across all SRCs except Muslims. Programme participant Muslim -households get minimal benefits of this development programme among SRCs.