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Access to Credit to Rural Women: A Study on the Role of PACCS-SHG Linkage in Tamil Nadu


Affiliations
1 Department of Cooperation School of Management Studies, The Gandhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram, India
     

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In recent years, State Government of Tamil Nadu encouraged Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Societies (PACCS) to diversify their functions by extending credit to local affinity groups that were credit worthy, responsible and development oriented. The linkage established with Self- Help Groups (SHGs), which were one of the local affinity groups, assumed greater significance in the context of Financial Inclusion of rural women. This study analyses how the PACCS in Tamil Nadu ensure institutional finance to rural women. The study adopted survey method. By employing multi stage random sampling method, 44 PACCS, and 629 women ( members of SHGs) were selected as sample respondents for this study from Tamil Nadu. The study finds that post establishing linkage, business performance of sample PACCS improved and also easy access to cooperative finance ensured. Besides contributing to women empowerment in rural setting, the PACCS-SHG linkage has drastically reduced the role of money lenders in informal rural credit market. Thus, PACCS-SHG linkage is found to be an acceptable platform to enable rural women to have easy access to institutional finance. This linkage should further be scaled up to facilitate rural women to move into a higher socioeconomic progress. This will contribute to financial stability and sustainability of PACCS, and at the same time, help in economic development of rural areas.

Keywords

Financial Institutions, Women Empowerment, SHGs.
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  • Government of India (2012): State of Indian Agriculture 2011-12, Ministry of Agriculture, GoI, New Delhi, p.71, www.agricop.nic.in.

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  • Government of Tamil Nadu (2017): Policy Note of Cooperation Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, Chennai, p.5 & 8.

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  • Ravichandran, K (2016): “Entrepreneurial Competencies of Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Societies in Tamil Nadu, India”, Sumalde, Z. M., K. P. Quilloy and P. M. Luis (Eds.), Cooperative Enterprises: Services, Practices and Performance, ICOPED-CEM, UPLB, p.55.

  • Ravichandran, K and Mathivanan, N (2018): “PACCS and Financial Inclusion: A Study from Small and Marginal Farmers’ Outlook”, International Journal of Advanced Scientific Research & Development, Vol. 05, No. 01, p.53-70. Accessed from https://www.ijasrd.org.


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  • Access to Credit to Rural Women: A Study on the Role of PACCS-SHG Linkage in Tamil Nadu

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Authors

K. Ravichandran
Department of Cooperation School of Management Studies, The Gandhigram Rural Institute, Gandhigram, India

Abstract


In recent years, State Government of Tamil Nadu encouraged Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Societies (PACCS) to diversify their functions by extending credit to local affinity groups that were credit worthy, responsible and development oriented. The linkage established with Self- Help Groups (SHGs), which were one of the local affinity groups, assumed greater significance in the context of Financial Inclusion of rural women. This study analyses how the PACCS in Tamil Nadu ensure institutional finance to rural women. The study adopted survey method. By employing multi stage random sampling method, 44 PACCS, and 629 women ( members of SHGs) were selected as sample respondents for this study from Tamil Nadu. The study finds that post establishing linkage, business performance of sample PACCS improved and also easy access to cooperative finance ensured. Besides contributing to women empowerment in rural setting, the PACCS-SHG linkage has drastically reduced the role of money lenders in informal rural credit market. Thus, PACCS-SHG linkage is found to be an acceptable platform to enable rural women to have easy access to institutional finance. This linkage should further be scaled up to facilitate rural women to move into a higher socioeconomic progress. This will contribute to financial stability and sustainability of PACCS, and at the same time, help in economic development of rural areas.

Keywords


Financial Institutions, Women Empowerment, SHGs.

References