Discriminate Empowerment Factors Among SHG Members In India A Pragmatic Study

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1 Discriminate Empowerment Factors Among SHG Members In India A Pragmatic Study Dr. J. PAUL SUNDAR KIRUBAKARAN Assistant Professor Department of International Business Administration College of Applied Sciences Nizwa Ministry of Higher Education Nizwa, Sultanate of Oman paulsundarr@gmail.com Dr. S.SUJA Assistant Professor Department of Business Administration Jubail University College Female Branch P.O Box 10001, Jubail Industrial City Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sujaboobalan@gmail.com ABSTRACT There are many organizations and methods evolved to enable women empowerment, one such organization is Self Help Groups (SHGs). Self Help Groups (SHGs) are small voluntary associations of women created for enabling members to reap the benefits out of mutual help, solidarity and joint responsibility. It focuses on self determination, self confidence, self invention and self development by mobilizing internal resources. Self Help Groups is considered as a tool for beginning the process of empowerment, the journey from an un-empowered to an empowered state. The study makes an attempt to find the discriminate empowerment factor among the satisfied and dissatisfied SHG Members In general, what are the variables which significantly discriminate the respondents of one group (Satisfied) from other group (dissatisfied). This study also attempts to find the difference between satisfied SHG and dissatisfied SHG members. Multi-stage sampling technique has been followed to carry out this study.750 members have been selected by using simple random method using lot. The interview schedule was prepared pre-tested with 100 selected SHGs members and utmost care was taken to avoid errors in data collection. Discriminant Function Analysis is used to find out the discriminate empowerment factor among the satisfied and dissatisfied SHG Members and suitable suggestion were provided. INTRODUCTION Women Empowerment is a continuously evolving doctrine, a belief system, a body of knowledge and practice, thought and action. It is a process of producing meaning and creating new representation of women hood, the individual and the collective identity of women. It is also against discrimination and unequal treatment in social, cultural, religious, political and economic institutions. The struggle of women today is to achieve equity, dignity and freedom of choice to be able to control their livelihood. Women empowerment is defined as the process of obtaining sense of self worth, their right to have determined choices, their right to have the power to control their lives both within and outside home, and their ability to influence the direction of social change to create a more just social and economic order nationally and internationally. Improvement of self help groups between women will become vitalize with three C s (collective, corrective and community based) for development of the social efforts for women. Further the massive problem of rural unemployment can be solved through self employment. > RJSSM: Volume: 05, Number: 1, May 2015 Page 152

2 SELF HELP GROUP-AN OVERVIEW Our perspective in the development of women has undergone radical change and we have moved, essentially from a welfare approach to an empowerment approach. In this context, Self Help Group (SHG) has emerged as the most successful strategy, in the process of participatory development and empowerment of women. The rural women are the marginalized groups of our society. SHG is a voluntary association of persons, mostly rural women, with common interests formed democratically with any political affiliations. The prime objective of this scheme is to improve the economic and social status of its members. Each group comprises members and is, though not registered, governed by an informal set of bye-laws framed by the members. Decisions are taken collectively, be it sanction of loans or fixing interest rate on loans. SHGs have the potential to become forum for self reliance and self determination for the members and a vehicle for the process of empowerment, particularly of poor women. The ultimate objective of the scheme is to empower women in rural areas. The empowerment of women can benefit them through two different channels. First, it has a direct impact on the welfare of individual women. Secondly, the program benefits the families, and hence the community as a whole. The objective of SHGs are designed to achieve the following aspects : to give credit to its members for meeting their consumption and production needs, to avoid getting trapped into traditional money lending systems, to encourage the habit of small saving among the poor to absorb shocks in expenditure, to help in the development of an alternative financial institution, development of strong and cohesive SHGs, improve access of SHGs members to various development schemes and institutional credit schemes, development of leadership qualities, building self confidence, increasing social awareness, improving the status of women in the family and society, improving the status of health and the family welfare, functional literacy, awareness of legal right and legal aid access, economic development, inculcating habit of saving, increasing of income, control over income and better income management, increasing of assets, changing from worker status to manager status, access to market choice of activities and continued access to the regular and alternative credit delivery system. SHG AS A STRATEGIC TOOL FOR EMPOWERMENT Women s empowerment basically is the procedure in which women independently and cooperatively grow to be active, knowledgeable and goal oriented, who take/or support initiatives to overcoming gender inequalities. Hence, Women s empowerment refers to a strategy to attain gender impartiality as well as to the intrinsic competence edifice process and different other factors. SHGs have, in fact, emerged as one of the key strategies for the union of services and activities. Women who decide to structure deliberate organization for small saving amounts are the SHG is a homogenous group of rural people including, known as corpus of the group out of which productive and contingent credit requirement of the members of the group could be met with. The women s advancement, the concepts development and empowerment have overlapping dimensions. As for women s empowerment is concerned, both attitudinal empowerment and material advancement components are necessary. Strategies for empowerment, must, therefore, focus on economic restructuring, to include restructuring of social relations which constraint and restrain women. The realistic move towards poverty alleviation should be promotion of self help among the poor. For income generation Indian women always have shown extraordinary dynamism in organizing themselves. SHG DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA: AN OVERVIEW In various parts of country, the term self-help group or SHG is linked with wide range of financial and non-financial associations, it has gained acquaintance as a structure of Accumulating Saving and Credit Association (ASCA) promoted by government agencies, NGOs or banks. These groups lend and manage their accumulated savings and externally leveraged funds to their members. SHGs have various origins, mainly as component of integrated development programmes run by NGOs with donor support. The prime programme involving financial intermediation by SHGs is the > RJSSM: Volume: 05, Number: 1, May 2015 Page 153

3 SHG-bank Linkage Programme. The programme was launched by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) during % on-time repayment for banks of loans was done by participating in the programme. The involvement of non-government organizations was remarkable, NGOs and other self-help promoting institutions. NABARD s corporate duty is to make obtainable microfinance services to 20 million poor households, or one-third of the poor in the country, by The outreach of SHG-bank linkage may seem extraordinary, but in the context of the magnitude of poverty in India and the stream of resources for poverty improvement, it indicates a very minute interference, there are about one-third of the SHG members who are able to access loans out of external funds in the initial years. Lots of families are getting benefitted out of this programme, nearly 4.5 million loans were dispersed to families who were eligible for loan during march Swarna Jayanti Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY) is an important scheme which is focusing towards poverty elevation of poor people., in this scheme, Rs crores was spent during , as against Rs crores under bank linkage, apart from that 2.4 from NABARD. Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) these includes friends of Women s World Banking (FWWB), Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK), Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO), and Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) Banks and donors, including Rabobank, it also offers grants and loans to microfinance institutions (MFIs) for on-lending to SHGs and federations of SHGs. Varieties of institutional arrangements have developed, including cooperatives, to provide access to financial services to the poor, particularly women. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The study attempts to find the following research problems 1. What are all the variables which significantly discriminate the respondents of one group (Satisfied) from other group (dissatisfied)? 2. How do respondents who are non satisfier differ from those who are satisfier in the factors on influencing measures of various empowerments? OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The overall objective of the present study is to analyse women empowerment through Self Help Groups with respect to the SHG members in Salem District of Tamil Nadu. The specific objectives are given below 1. To find the factors influencing among the satisfied and dissatisfied SHG members 2. To find the group means and standard deviations for each of the independent variables identified for analysis based on the sample size METHODOLOGY The study exposes the facts based on survey method. The study attempts to measure the empowerment of women. These indicators have been included in the interview schedule. Each indicator has a set of statement to which the responses of the respondent have been recorded in five point scale ranging from 1 to 5. The total of the scores for all the statement constituted the women empowerment score for each respondent. The total score of all the statements relating to one dimension constituted the score for that dimension. These empowerment scores and dimensions scores have been used for further analysis. After analysis, inferences as to empowerment of women, relationship between variables and role of SHGs in women empowerment have been made. In the process, the hypotheses have been tested. SAMPLING SCHEME At multi-stage sampling technique has been followed. In the first stage, it was decided to conduct the study at the district level keeping in the mind, the time, and period and research > RJSSM: Volume: 05, Number: 1, May 2015 Page 154

4 constraint. Salem district has been selected as it is one of the pioneering districts in implementing SHGs programme. Among the thirty districts, Salem secures second place in getting training for SHGs from Government of Tamil Nadu. In the second stage, there are 20 blocks in Salem district; all the 20 blocks have been selected following census method. In each block, the list of SHGs has been obtained from the District Collectorate, and 125 groups among 6081 groups have been selected using simple random method using lots. In the third stage, the list of members has been obtained from each group and 6 members have been selected by applying simple random method using lots. Thus 750 members have been selected for the study. FACTORS AMONG THE SATISFIED AND DISSATISFIED SHG MEMEBERS The present study makes an attempt to find the linear combinations of the predictors that best separate the populations. In general, what are all the variables which significantly discriminate the respondents of one group (Satisfied) from other group (dissatisfied)? How do respondents who are non satisfier differ from those who are satisfier in the factors on influencing measures of various empowerments? Do factors like Economic empowerment, Decision making, Social empowerment, Psychological empowerment, managerial empowerment, personality empowerment, leadership empowerment, legal awareness and quality of work life differ among these two groups? In general, what are all the variables which significantly discriminate the respondents of one group (dissatisfied) from other group (Satisfied)? Discriminant Function Analysis answers these questions in 3 stages namely: 1. Construction of Discriminant Function, 2.Classification and 3.Interpretation. CONSTRUCTION OF DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION Discriminant Function Analysis attempts to construct a function with these and other variables so that the respondents belonging to either of these two groups are differentiated at the maximum. The linear combination of the variables is known as Discriminant Function and its parameters are called Discriminant Function coefficients. A typical Discriminant Function will be of the form, Z = a + a X + a X a X n n Where, a0 - constant and a 1,a 2,...a n - Discriminant Function coefficients of the independent variables X 1,X 2,...X n respectively. I VARIABLE SELECTION METHOD In constructing the function all variables which contribute to differentiate these two groups maximally are examined. Among the several methods available for selection of variables, 'Mahalanobis Minimum D Squared method was employed for this study. The Mahalanobis procedure is based on the generalized squared Euclidean distance that adjusts for unequal variances in the variables. The major advantage of this procedure is that it is computed in the original space of the predictor (independent) variables rather than as a collapsed version which is used in other methods. In general Mahalanobis Minimum D Squared' is the preferred procedure since the researcher is interested in the maximum use of available information. Stepwise Selection: In the process of constructing Discriminant Function, after deciding about Mahalanobis Min. D Squared method, the type of computation is also to be decided. One is Simultaneous Method and the other one is Stepwise Method. The Simultaneous Method involves computing the Discriminant Function so that all the Independent variables are considered concurrently regardless of the discriminating power of each independent variable. The Stepwise Method is an alternative to the above discussed method. In involves entering the independent variables in the Discriminant Function one at a time on the basis of their discriminating power. The stepwise approach begins by choosing the single best discriminating variable. The initial variable is then paired with each of the other independent variables one at a time, and a second variable is chosen. The second variable is the one that is best able to improve the discriminating power of the Function in combination with the first variable. The third and any subsequent variables are selected in a similar manner. As additional variables are included, some already > RJSSM: Volume: 05, Number: 1, May 2015 Page 155

5 selected variables may be removed if the information they contain about group differences is available in some combination of the other already included variables (Multicollinearity). Eventually either all independent variables will have been included in the function or the excluded variables will have been judged as not contributing significantly to further discrimination. By sequentially selecting the next best discriminating variable at each step variables that are not useful in discriminating between the groups are eliminated and a reduced set of variables is identified. The reduced set typically is almost as good as, and sometimes better than, the complete set of variables. The first stage of Discriminant Function Analysis is made by examining Table 1. This table shows the group means and standard deviations for each of the independent variables identified for analysis based on the sample size of 750. Table: 1 Group Statistics Sl. No. Empowerment variables Dissatisfied Satisfied Total Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD 1 Economic Decision making Social Psychological Managerial Personality Leadership Legal Awareness Quality of work life The mean scores reveal that except Leadership and legal awareness satisfier scores high on many factors of influencing measures towards types of satisfiers. Table: 2 Tests of Equality of Group Means Sl. Variables Wilks' Lambda F df1 df2 Sig. No. 1 Economic Decision making Social * 4 Psychological Managerial Personality Leadership Legal Awareness Quality of work life ** Table.2 shows the One-way ANOVA used to assess the significance between the means of the two groups, for each of the independent variables. It is seen from the table that variables (factors) > RJSSM: Volume: 05, Number: 1, May 2015 Page 156

6 Social empowerment and Quality of work life score contribute significantly in differentiating between two groups of satisfiers expressed on influencing measures using the 9 factors. Since the objective is to determine the variables which discriminate most efficiently between two groups of satisfiers, all the factors were retained for further analysis and the stepwise approach was used to remove any insignificant factors. The stepwise procedure begins with examining all the variables for inclusion in the function. The variable, if selected that maximizes the Mahalanobis Minimum D Square between the groups is entered in to the function first. In order to restrict all the variables being entered into the equation, a minimum F value of 1.00 is fixed as entry criterion for inclusion in the Discriminant Function. Table: 3 Variables in the Analysis At each step, the variable that maximizes the Mahalanobis distance between the two groups is entered. Step Variables Tolerance F to Remove Min. D Squared 1 Quality of work life Quality of work life Social Table.3 gives the list of variables considered for analysis at each step, with corresponding F- to-remove and D 2 values to examine the possible inclusion of variables in the equation. A look at the table will reveal that the entry criterion has eliminated the variables Economic empowerment, Decision making, Psychological, managerial empowerment, personality empowerment, leadership empowerment and legal awareness score from possible inclusion in the equation. Also the table gives the information as which should be the variable entered first. By examining D 2 value, which maximizes the distance between the two groups, it is seen that at each step a variable is entered, the D 2 value has increased, thereby increasing the discrimination between the two groups. The variable which maximum discriminated between the two groups can be identified from the variable which was entered first. Here it was Age score. At each step a variable is entered, the significance of the function is tested using Wilk's Lambda (λ) and D 2 values arrived for this function. Both the statistics show that the Discriminant Function is significant at 1% level. The results are given in Table 4. Table: 4 Wilk s' Lambda Step Number of Variables Lambda Exact F Statistic df1 df2 Sig Once entered in the equation, at each step, the variables already entered are further examined for positive removal from the equation. A variable is removed if high Multicollinearity exists between the included independent variables. Like entry criterion, the removal criterion is also fixed at This process of selection, inclusion and removal continues until all the variables satisfying above entry and removal conditions are satisfied. Table: 5 Summary table Step Entered Min. D Squared F-Statistic df1 df2 Sig. 1 Social empowerment Quality of work life Table.5 provides the overall stepwise discriminant analysis results after all significant variables have been included in the Discriminant Function. The summary table indicates that out of > RJSSM: Volume: 05, Number: 1, May 2015 Page 157

7 9 variables considered for the analysis 2 variables were included in the model, leaving two variables namely Economic empowerment, Decision making, Psychological, managerial empowerment, personality empowerment, leadership empowerment and legal awareness score from the function The significance of the discriminating variables were tested using Wilk's Lambda (λ) and Min D 2 values which are given in the table. CANONICAL DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION: Table.6 provides the multivariate aspect of the model given under the heading 'Canonical Discriminant Function'. Note that Discriminant Function is significant at 1% level and displays a correlation of By squaring it we get (0.818)^2= and may be interpreted as 66.91% of the variation in the dependent variable Sector, may be explained by all the discriminating variables included in the model and the Wilk s Lambda and its chi-square value explains that the model is significant in discriminating between two sectors at 1% level. Table: 6 Canonical Discriminant Function Test of Canonical Wilks' Chi-square df Sig. Function(s) Correlation Lambda 1 through DISCRIMINANT FUNCTION COEFFICIENTS Table.7 gives the coefficients of the discriminating variables finally derived for the Discriminant Function. Table: 7 Canonical Discriminant Function Coefficients Function Social empowerment Quality of work life (Constant) The Discriminant Function (Z) for the problem under study can be written as, Z = x Social empowerment x Quality of work life (A) II. CLASSIFICATION Once the Discriminant Function is arrived at, then the efficiency of the function as to, how accurately it predicts the respondents in to the respective groups must be assessed. For this a classification matrix is to be developed using original and 'predicted' group membership of the respondents. Before a Classification Matrix can be considered, several things must be decided beforehand. First, the group Centroids (means), second cutting score and third a prior Probabilities of each group. GROUP CENTROIDS Using the Discriminant Functions given in (A) the discriminant score for each respondent is calculated by substituting the values for discriminating variables from the study data. Then mean scores for dissatisfied (Z 0 ), satisfied (Z 2 ) are calculated, which are called Group Centroids. The results of this Group Centroids are given in Table CUTTING SCORE Using the sample sizes and Centroids for these two groups Cutting Score is calculated as follows: (N 0 x Z) 0 +(N 1 x Z 1) Z c = N 0 +N 1 > RJSSM: Volume: 05, Number: 1, May 2015 Page 158

8 where, Z c = Cutting Score Z 0 = Centroid for dissatisfied Z 2 = Centroid for satisfied N 0 = Sample size of dissatisfied N 1 = Sample size of satisfied Table: 8 Un standardized canonical discriminant functions Type of satisfier Function Dissatisfier Satisfier Hence substituting the respective values the cutting score is Z c = [265 x (-3.025) x (1.653)] / ( ). Against this Cutting Score each respondent s discriminant score is examined. If the score is less than Z c value, is classified in the respective group. PRIOR PROBABILITIES A prior probabilities are calculated for each group based on the proportionate size of the sample in the respective groups and the results are given in Table Table: 9 Prior Probabilities for Groups Type of satisfier Prior Cases Used in Analysis Dissatisfier Satisfier Total Using these prior probabilities, Centroids and cutting score the Classification Matrix is formed. Table: 10 Classification Results Original Satisfaction level Predicted Group Membership Low Medium Total Count Dissatisfied Satisfier Dissatisfied % Satisfier a 95.7% of original grouped cases correctly classified. Table is the Classification Matrix giving how many of the respondents were correctly classified into the respective groups and the overall correct classification percentage. Thus it is seen that the Discriminant Function has predicted 87.9% of the cases correctly in the dissatisfied group and 100% of the cases in the satisfier group and on the whole classified 95.7%of the cases correctly. III. INTERPRETATION The efficient are the discriminating variables in the Discriminant Function is based on the discriminating power or the contribution of each variable to the function. Table 11 gives the structural correlations which measure the simple linear correlations between each independent variable and the Discriminant Function. The R 2 % gives the percent contribution of each variable to > RJSSM: Volume: 05, Number: 1, May 2015 Page 159

9 Discriminant Function. It is seen from the table that nearly 81.3 % of the variation in the Discriminant Function is due to Quality of work life, which contributes maximally, in discriminating between types of satisfiers. Next comes, Social empowerment score, which contributes about 47 % in discriminating between the types of satisfiers followed by Leadership, Legal Awareness, Personality and Economic. Managerial, Decision making seems to contribute least in discriminating types of satisfiers. Table: 11 Structure Matrix Function Quality of work life Social Leadership Legal Awareness Personality Psychological Economic Managerial Decision making INFLUENCING FACTORS TOWARDS THE LEVEL OF SATISFACTION AMONG SHG MEMBERS ON POST PERIOD Influencing factors towards the level of satisfaction is classified in ten factors. They are Economic status, loan amount, decision making power, social status, managerial decision making power, development of your personality, leadership qualities, legal awareness, quality of life and Overall satisfaction in SHG membership. To identify the factor which is more influencing, Friedman s test analysis is used and the results were given in Table 12. Table: 12 Friedman Test Influencing Factors towards the level of satisfaction among SHG members on post period Sl. Std. Mean Chi- Factors Mean df P No Deviation Rank Square 1 Economic status Loan amount Decision making power Social status Managerial decision making power Development of personality Leadership qualities Legal awareness > RJSSM: Volume: 05, Number: 1, May 2015 Page 160

10 9 Quality of life Overall satisfaction in SHG membership For the rankings, the chi-square value is Degrees of freedom are equal to the number of variables minus 1. Because ten factors were being ranked, there are 9 degrees of freedom. The p value is less than The chi-square of with 9 degrees of freedom is unlikely to have arisen by chance, therefore we conclude that the 750 respondents do not have equal preference for all factors. It is noted from the above table that among the five factors Social status was ranked first. It is followed by the Legal awareness. Overall satisfaction in SHG membership is ranked third. FINDINGS It is found that the variation in the Discriminant Function is due to Quality of work life, which contributes maximally, in discriminating between types of satisfiers. Social empowerment score, which contributes about 47 % in discriminating between the types of satisfiers followed by Leadership, Legal Awareness, personality and Economic. Managerial, Decision making seems to contribute least in discriminating types of satisfiers. Among the five factors Social status was ranked first. It is followed by the Legal awareness. Overall satisfaction in SHG membership is ranked third. SUGGESTIONS From the above observations, the researcher feels that the policy makers can focus on the following issues and design appropriate policy to strengthen the impact of SHGs. 1. The above study states that there is drastic improvement in the satisfaction level of SHG members so the policy makers may focus on strengthening the groups. 2. SHG members can be educated to repay the loan amount at proper time in order to gain the benefits of loans. 3. Proper education is required for the SHG members are to know about the scope of this cooperative movement. 4. Family should be supported by the male member, who is supposed to be the head of the family. 5. Training in the business activities of the members is the need of the hour. 6. The role of NGOs should extended by supporting the SHGs members to find the suitable place to market their products. 7. The district authorities may adopt a day-to-day system to monitor the functioning of SHGs. 8. Women should have self-confidence in difficulties. This is one of the important tool to show the actual level of skills and their capabilities 9. Women can confer greater authority and value by contributing and supporting the family with financially. SCOPE FOR FUTURE RESEARCH Although there is much that the researcher would like to investigate into empowering of women through SHGs, the preset study tries to provide a few guidelines that can be followed by future researchers. 1. The information gathered through the practitioners could be more useful to draw inferences about the impact of SHGs. > RJSSM: Volume: 05, Number: 1, May 2015 Page 161

11 2. Incorporate programmatic elements such as training or leadership opportunities that contribute to women s empowerment. 3. Trace empowerment benefits along with institutions financial performance and economic impact indicators. 4. Bring women and women s prospective into the governance, management and implementation of business enterprises. 5. Collect gender-disaggregated data for use in the design and improvement of programmes. 6. A study on non-member women may be undertaken. A comparative study may be much useful in this context in future. REFERENCES Ahuja., (2005), Universal Health Insurance Scheme, Yojana, Volume 49, New Delhi, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Anantkumar.,(2006), Self Help Groups, Women s Health and Empowerment: Global thinking and contextual issues, Jharkhand Journal of Development and Management Studies. 4(3), September, pp Anita Panda., (2004), SHG A Book for Many, The Co-operator, Volume 42, NO. 6, pp Asokan R. and Sudha T., (2005), Economic Status of Rural Women SHGs in Nagapattinam District (with special reference to Elumagalur Village) Co-operatives perspectives, Volume 39, No. 4, pp Bakshi, S.,andVarma, R.V., (2001), Empowering Women through Self Help Groups: A Case Study, Conference Paper: Kerala Forest Research Institute, Peechi, pp Barik B.B. and Vannan P.P., (2001), Promoting Self Help Groups As Sub System of Credit Cooperatives, The Co-operator, Volume 38, No. 7, pp Batish, S., Kaur, M., and Dhillon, M.K., (1998), Rural Women: Their Role in Economic Development, Conference Paper on Ecological Agriculture, Chandigar, Volume.2, pp Bharat Dogra., (2002), Women Self Help Groups, Kurukshetra, Volume No. 50, No. 5, pp.40,42. Bhatt, G.D., (1998), Empowerment and Status of Rural Women: A Central Himalayan Perspective, M.D. Publications (P) Ltd., New Delhi, pp.194 C.S.Ramalakshmi., (2003),published in Economic Political weekly in Vol 38 Nos 12 &13. Chiranjeevulu. T., (2003), Empowering women through Self-Help Groups, Kurukshetra, Volume 51, No. 5, pp Chittaranjan Mishra., (2005), SHGs in the Unorganized Garment Sector A Case study of Madurai, Kurukshetra, Volume 53, No. 8, pp Devi, L., (1994), Employment and Income Generation for Rural Women, National Bank News Review, Bombay, Vol.10, No.2, pp Dharmvir., (2004), Co-operative Self Help Groups (CSHGs) A View point, The Co-operator, Volume 42, NO. 6, pp Dignard, L., and Havet, J., (1995), Women in Micro and Small Scale Enterprise Development, West view Press, Inc., BounlderCo., U.S.A., pp.282 Dr. K. Kamalakannan& Dr. N. Namasivayam., (2005), Kison world volume 32, pp.32, > RJSSM: Volume: 05, Number: 1, May 2015 Page 162

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