Impact of Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojona on health, education and women empowerment

Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojona (SGSY), a government sponsored micro credit programme of India, has been designed to ameliorate income poverty among the rural poor, particularly women, through human capital development and strengthening female agency. In this backdrop the basic objectives of the paper are to see: (a) whether the programme has any impact on health of the programme participants across Socio Religious Communities (SRCs)(b) Whether the programme has any significant role in improving education across SRCs. (c) Whether SGSY programme has been able to enhance female agency irrespective of caste and community affiliation. The District of Murshidabad, West Bengal, has been chosen as the field of study. All the selected SHG members were two years old. The initial sampling was done in 2006 to know about the pre-SHG participation socio economic condition. The resurvey was conducted in 2008. The study shows that from 2004 to 2008, the programme has significant impact on female agency across all SRCs except Muslims, but the role of the programme in forming human capital is insignificant irrespective of SRCs. If household specific unobserved heterogeneity is removed, then significant impact of the programme on female agency becomes insignificant across all SRCs except UCs.