Government Operated Self-Employment and Microfinance Programme towards Financial Inclusion and Poverty Alleviation in Rural Areas:A Study of Self-Help Groups under SGSY

Despite a mere 17.5% contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Indian agriculture still provides livelihood support to about two-thirds of the country's population. The country has taken notable strides in the agricultural sector during the last four and a half decades of economic planning where the contours of Indian agriculture started showing improvement gradually after the mid-1960s with the introduction of High Yielding Varieties (HYV) of crops. The subsequent emphasis on the development of agricultural infrastructure for the supply of agro-inputs like irrigation, power, water, seed, credit and fertilisers, creation of storage and marketing facilities and provision of adequate and fair distribution of food-grains, however, could not give an appropriate boost to the growth of agricultural productivity.