Paper Title
Economic Empowerment of Rural Women Through Training in Self-Help Groups (SHGS)

Abstract
Women’s development in recent years emphasizes on providing equal opportunities to women by removing gender bias; empowering women and creating self reliance among them. According to Gurumoorthy(2000), Self Help Groups(SHGs) undertake entrepreneurial activities at smaller level with minimum capital requirements. The women have successfully demonstrated how to mobilize and manage thrift, appraise credit needs and enforce financial self discipline. SHGs have the potential to ignite the socio economic revolution in rural India. According to the studies of Sathyasundaram (2003), the SHG- Bank linkage programme has helped the weaker sections, enhanced the saving habit, improved the repayment percentage, increased employment opportunities, enhanced self-confidence of the members and made members more assertive in facing social evils. Hence appropriate training must be provided to rural women in SHG for their economic empowerment. Keywords— Economic Empowerment, Rural women, Self-Help Group (SHG).