Micro-Finance in India Progress of Shg-Bank Linkage Programme

The micro finance programme in India made rapid progress since 2001 in term of both the number of SHGs financed and the amount of credit extended. This paper discusses the trends of microfinance programme in India. NABARD’s data is used to achieve the objective. The number of SHGs financed increased steadily from year to year since 2001 from 1,49,050 in 2000-01 to 11,47,878 in 2011-12, taking the cumulative total figure to  89,03,610 in 2011-12. Micro credit in India was confined mainly to the Southern region of the country, with 7,05,419 SHGs (61.45%) of the total of 11,47,878 SHGs financed in the year 2011-12 in the country. Commercial banks were at top in both terms, the number of SHGs financed and credit extended to SHGs with 52.34% to the total and 60.13% to the total respectively during the year 2011-12.