Community Empowerment by Dr. SBM Prasanna, Dr. K Puttaraju, Dr.MS Mahadevaswamy (books under 200 pages TXT) 📕

helps to maximize the resources by the interaction between various physical, technological economic, socio cultural and institutional factors. As a strategy it is designed to improving living standards of the masses of low – income population residing in rural and tribal areas and making the process of their development self sustaining.

Self Help movement through savings has been taken up as a mass movement by women a path chosen by them to shape their destiny for better. As a result of social networking and participation most of the women developed self confidence, courage and initiation for planning, organizing and also associating themselves with group activities. Infact prior to their association with SHG, they could not raise a word against their husbands, when they were indulging in alcoholism. Now they used to question their husbands alcoholism, more over as a group activity they could participate movements against alcoholism and violence against women. In addition they are involved actively in decision making in the family regarding children’s education and other family related matters. Frequent interaction of women themselves and group pressure largely contributed to large scale adoption of family planning and small family size norm. During the group meetings women discuss the issues and problems related to them like alcoholism, health, family planning and abuse by husbands. If any women is abused by the husband or family members the group handles the situation jointly. Women gained courage and individuality through the Group. (Mahadevan etal 2002).

For the present analysis to evaluate the social networking and social empowerment fifteen variables were formulated with a five point scale and the variable selected were ;-getting help from group when needed; participation in community action; have a feeling of social security; freedom to mix with friends and neighbors; feeling as part of team work; participation in decision about family / friends; decision making in children’s education; participation against alcoholism and violence; helps received from friends / neighbours on economic crisis; feeling of concern towards sick, suffering and the marginalized; feeling as part of solving local community problems; trust the community; motivate the people to join SHG; borrowing money in distress and willingness to contribute time and money for beneficiary project. The five point scale was used to collect the responses of the above variable from the respondents. On the basis of the scores obtained the respondents were classified in to High, Moderate and Low levels of social networking and empowerment.

The table 1 illustrated that among the respondents only 7% percent of them had high score of networking and empowerment. On the other hand more than 50% belongs to moderate level and 36 percent of the respondents had low level of Networking and empowerment. The mean score of was 54.526. While comparing the mean score of social empowerment before and after joining the SHG movement, the mean score of empowerment before was 49.206 and after joining SHG the mean score has been increased to 54.526. It has been significant at 0.5 percent level.

As a result of Social networking and participation of women in SHG contributed a larger extend of changes in the family and society. This empowerment is a process to change the distribution of power in inter personal relations among different people, culture and activities of the society. In the past awareness regarding the society was unknown to the women but present women are equally participating in all activities of the society.

Self reliance and self confidence

To study the self reliance and self confidence the variables selected were. Have self confidence. Have courage, Have self reliance, Feeling of Safety and security, feeling at Home in the Group. Among the respondents only 9 percent of them had high level of self reliance and self confidence score. Three fourth of the respondents (76%) had moderate level of self confidence followed by 15% of the respondents had low level of self retiance and self confidence. While analysing the mean score before and after joining the SHG group, a significant level of difference can be observed it was 19.65 and 21.073 before and after respectively.

Political participation / Political Empowerment

Social capital offers a wealth of resources and networks that facilitate political engagement. Since social capital is readily available no matter the type of community, it is able to override more traditional queues for political engagement (e.g., education, employment, civil skills, etc.…). There are unique ways in which women organize. These differences from men make social capital more personable and impressionable to women audiences thus creating a stronger presence in regards to political engagement. A few examples of these characteristics are:

Women's informal and formal networks tend toward care work that is often considered apolitical.

Women are also more likely to engage in local politics and social movement activities than in traditional forums focused on national politics.

Women are more likely to organize themselves in less hierarchical ways and to focus on creating consensus.

The often informal nature of female social capital allows women to politicize apolitical environments without conforming to masculine standards, thus keeping this activity off the radar.

Political participation is yet another important determinant of empowerment of women. For the present analysis to assess the political participation the following variables were considered:- holding a political position; freedom to participate political activities / movements; participation in gramsabha and other public discourse; awareness on political institutions and awareness on Human Rights and Legislation related to women. The results showed that only 2 % of the SHG women had high level of empowerment score. The highest percentage 62% of the SHG women had moderate level of political empowerment as against 36 percent belongs to low level of empowerment. The mean score is 7.48. It has also been noticed that the mean score obtained by the SHG women group before joing the group was 6.56. It is significant at 0.05 level.

Hence the political component would encampass the ability of organize and mobilize the women for change. Consequently an empowerment process must involve not only individual awareness but collective awareness and collective action. The notion of collective action is fundamental to the aim of attaining social transformation.

Trust and Solidarity:

A growing body of research has found that the presence of social capital through social networks and communities has a protective quality on health. Social capital affects health risk behavior in the sense that individuals who are embedded in a network or community rich in support, social trust, information, and norms, have resources that help achieve health goals. Social capital also encourages social trust and membership. These factors can discourage individuals from engaging in risky health behaviors such as smoking and drinking.

Trust and solidarity is one of the dimensions of social capital. For the present study the respondents were asked about a range of trust on different types of people like:- people from own SHG group people from other group, officials and NGO’s / Bank, Teachers, Anganwadi workers and family members. It has been found that trust and solidarity is greater among the people from own SHG group, followed by members of own family and community. Trust and solidarity of other SHG group is only small extend. The members expressed trust and solidarity towards the bank and NGO’s on a greater extend.

Impact of Social capital on SHG Women

In general as a result of their group activity SHG women have totally changed their lifestyles. They developed self confidence, courage and decision making capacities. They are confident enough to protest against violence and atrocities. Besides they have become economically independent.

Interacting with fellow women in large groups which has led to several advantages. Most of the members are able to gain information on several welfare and developmental activities and programmes because of their periodic interaction with other members and officials. This has helped them to develop a sense of self confidence.

Most of the women members are illiterate but due to the group activities they are intensely aware of the importance of education. They are giving highest priority to their children’s education. The dropout rate also reduced as a result of the SHG movement.

Empowerment and political action explores the sense of satisfaction, personal efficiency and capacity of network among the group members. Empowerment and political action enabled them to have contacts with the neighborhood association as well as in other networks of groups. The positive side of the social capital is the togetherness and closeness in the community. The study observed that there is a greater level of trust among group members, that enabled them to act against social evils and atrocities against women. All these aspects reveal that there is conducive atmosphere of networking and participation takes place among the SHG movement that in turn leads to community empowerment and wellbeing of society.

Table – 1 : Percentage distribution of SHG women on Networking and participation and Social Empowerment

Level of Empowerment

Frequency

Percentage

High

21

7.0

Moderate

171

57.0

Low

108

36.0

Total

300

100

Mean

54.526

 

SD

8.715

 

 

Mean Score Before and After joining SHG

Before

After

Mean difference

T Value

P

49.206

54.526

5.230

17.56

0.05

 

Table 2 : Self Reliance and Self Confidence

Levels of Self Reliance and Confidence

Frequency

%

High

27

9.0

Moderate

228

76.0

Low

45

15.0

Mean

21.073

 

SD

2.277

 

 

Mean score Before and After

Before

After

Mean difference

T Value

P

19.650

21.073

1.423

906

 

 

Table – 3 : Percentage distribution of Respondents by level of political participation and political empowerment

Political Empowerment

Frequency

%

High

6

2.0

Moderate

186

62.0

Low

108

36.0

Total

300

100

 

 

Mean

Before

After

Mean difference

6.560

7.480

0.920

 

 

References

Arefi, M. 2003, Revisiting the Los Angeles Neighborhood Initiative (LANI): Lessons for Planners. Journal of planning education and research, vol.22 iss.4 pg.384

Coleman, J.S. 1990, Foundations of Social Theory, Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press

Mahadevan et al ,K. 2002, Participatory Experiment in Holistic Rapid Development ( Eds ) B.R, Publishing  corporation, New Delhi

Putnam, Robert. 2000, "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community" (Simon and Schuster).

Social capital,From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sujeesh M.K. , 2014. Role of Gender and Social Capital in Sustainable livelihood promotion of Kadar Tribe. ( unpublished Ph.D. Thesis , Gandhigram Rural university, Tamil nadu.

 

 

THE WORKING OF SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES IN INDIA

 

H. N. Devanand* & T. Rajendra Prasad**

*Assistant Professor, Centre for Rural Development Studies, Bangalore University

**Professor, Dept., of Economics, Bangalore University, Bangalore- 560 0056

 

INTRODUCTION

The 1991 reform has progressively opened up the economy to face effectively the new challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Considering the need to enhance foreign investment and promote exports from the country and realizing the importance of domestic enterprises and manufacturers to be competitive globally the government had announced the introduction of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) policy during April 2000 through a revision in the Export and import Policy (Exam) 1997-2002.

SEZs are intended as engine for economic growth supported by quality infrastructure with minimum possible regulations, and an attractive fiscal package, both at level of central and state governments. Various incentives and facilities are offered to both SEZ developers and units in SEZ’s for attracting investments including foreign investment into SEZ’s.

These incentives and facilities are expected to trigger a large flow of foreign and domestic investment in SEZ’s in infrastructure and productive capacity, leading to generation of additional economic activity and creation of employment opportunities. With this background the present paper intend to examine the following:

Emergence of Special Economic Zones

Working of expand in India

Prospects of expand

EMERGENCE OF SEZs:

The first expert processing zone in India in the name and style of Kandla Free Trade Zone at the port town Kandla in Gujarat became operational is 1966-1967. Keeping in view the rapid growth of demand for electronics products Santa Cruz electronics EPZ (SEEPZ) was planned as a single product zone for processing electronic goods for export. The second zone, SEEPZ was built at Mumbai in Maharashtra in September 1972 in order to cater to the proximity market and growing popularity of Indian gold and jewellery ornaments, SEEPZ was made a two product Zone in 1988, Standard Design Factory Building exclusively for Gem and Jewellery