INTRODUCTION:

Women perform 66% of the world’s work, produce 50% of the food and own 1% of the property.¹ “No, these women needed opportunity, not charity. They want chance, not bleeding hearts.” – Prof. Mohammed Yunus. Socio-economic development through groups, a popular approach in the present-day world, empowering Self-help Groups (SHGs) towards poverty alleviation and reducing unemployment both in the urban and rural areas in India and many developing countries of the world. The issues relating to poverty alleviation have been receiving attention of urban planners, policy makers, implementing agencies, research institutions at national and international levels.

The Eighth Five-Year Plan (1992-97) attempted to involve people in the process of development by the adoption of institutional approach through involvement of voluntary agencies for effective micro-level participatory planning.² Poverty and unemployment are the basic problems in the Indian economy and the solution lies in creation of jobs or self-employment. Changes in occupations have taken place due to self-employment programs. The present study aims at assessing the impact of policy intervention through SHGs on the occupational distribution in the urban areas of the State of Tripura. The study also tries to compare the man-days of employment generated between pre-SHG and post-SHG eras. Besides, the paper has highlighted how women participation in entrepreneurial activities hasbrought changes in occupational pattern.

Concept of SHGsand brief about implementation of Self-employment Programmes in urban India:

With policies encompassing anti-poverty strategies and employment, the Government of India has been launching various programmes and schemes to ameliorate the conditions of the urban poor. The schemes launched from time to time for the urban poor were Environmental Improvement of Urban Slums (EIUS), Nehru Rozgar Yojana (NRY), Urban Basic Services for the Poor (UBSP), Prime Minister’s Integrated Urban Poverty Eradication Programme (PMIUPEP) and National Slum Development and Programme (NSDP). The UBSP, NRY and PMIUPEP were merged into Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana (SJSRY). The latest two schemes launched by the Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation, Government of India (GOI) are the Deen Dayal Antodaya- National Urban Livelihood Mission (DAY-NULM) and PMAY(Urban). The SJSRY was launched in 1997 with the objective to reduce poverty and unemployment problems.This major urban self-employment and poverty alleviation program was replaced by NULM on 24.09.2013. Renamed as DAY-NULM, it aims at organizing the urban poor in SHGs, creating opportunities for skill development leading to market-based employment and helping them to set up self-employment ventures by ensuring easy access to credit.³ Since 1997-98 till 2013-14, total number of women SHGs formed in India was 139248; that beneficiaries assisted under women SHGs for setting up of micro-enterprises were 3737669 and that Thrift and Credit Societies formed 1113469.Widened the scope with a multidimensional approach to cover mainly occupational and social vulnerabilities faced by urban poor including support to urban street vendors and shelter for urban homeless, the central fund allocation under DAY-NULM during 2016-17 to 15.01.17 was Rs.300 crore, but the release to Sates/Union Territories was Rs.253.19. During 2016-17, number of SHGs formed was 46999, out of which 38305 received Revolving Fund (RF), 351017 beneficiaries got skill training, of which 60287 were self-employed and 28049 opted for individual/group enterprises.⁴

Demographic Background, Urban Administration and Socio-economic Scenario in Tripura:

Tripura, known for its rich heritage and tradition of composite culture of tribal and non-tribal, is a hilly land-locked State, located in the North-Eastern Region of India. Having a total geographical area of 10491.69 sq. km. and census population of 3673,917, it has now 8 Districtsand 20 ULBs. The Municipal Administration, established in 1874, has gradually been extended to semi-urban and many rural areas.⁵The State Government has been successfully implementing many rural and urban government self-employment programmes. As on 11.01.2016 SHGs formed in all 20 ULBs of Tripura under NULM/SJSRY were 1616. SHGs formed only under DAY-NULM as on 31.03.2018 in ULBs are only 212 in Tripura. ⁶The economy of Tripura is characterized by agrarian, high rate of poverty, low per-capita income, low capital formation, inadequate infrastructural facilities, slow progress in industrial field and high un-employment problem. More than 42% of its population now directly depends on agriculture and allied activities. The contribution of primary sector has increased to 33% in 2014-15. The GSDP at current prices with 2011-12 base stands at Rs. 29,666.62 crore and the per capita income has risen to Rs.71666 in 2014-15. Low availability of infrastructure has made the process of economic development and industrialization extremely difficult in the State. The un-organized small manufacturing and service activities are dominant. However, despite several bottlenecks, the overall performance of the State’s real economy is impressive. The upliftment of the poor and improvement in the quality of life of the economically weaker sections of the society has been objectives of development planning and policy decisions of the State. The un-employment situation in the State has assumed alarming position as total job seekers increased to 693,516 as in March 2016 from 662,756 in 2015. Due to increase in population and resultant addition to the labour force, the supply side of labour force continues to outstrip the demand resulting in rise of un-employment and under-employment in the State. The 6th Economic Census-2013 in Tripura revealing the nature of the existing employment pattern registered about 404,024 persons (170,588 being in the urban areas) working in 236,773 establishments in 2013 against 3,85,708 persons in 1,89,423 establishments in 2005. The maximum number of workers found engaged are in retail trade, education, manufacturing, other services, transport, accommodation and storage and community and personal services. The literacy rate of Tripura is 87.22%of the population with males and females being 91.5% and 82.7% respectively (Census data 2011).⁷The State Government of Tripura has taken steps through programme implementation keeping the “Vision document” in the horizon for increasing women participation in SHGs, which force changes in occupational pattern in urban areas. ULBs in Tripura largely suffer from institutional weakness, poor financial health and lack of basic physical and social infrastructure.

To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first ever effort in the area of our study as per the model adopted.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:

The present study aims at impact study of SHG activities in bringing about changes occupational pattern, self-employment and extent of SHG entrepreneurships. The following are the broad objectives of the study:

· Analyzing the changes in occupational distribution of the women folk between the period prior-to-SHG formation and post-joining-SHGs.

· Assessing the changes in man-days generated through self-employment after intervention through SHGs.

· Extent of the impact status on change of occupational patterns due to entrepreneurships among women participants in SHGs.

· Findings and recommendations of the study for future course of actions.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

The following readings have contributed to gather some ideas on socio-economic development of urban people through SHG intervention for providing self-employment via occupational changes and motivating groups to take up entrepreneurial activities:

Prem Rawat (2006) in his paper compiled by Sabir Ali states that cities are engines of economic growth and they are generators of employment and income. Indian cities contribute more than 60% of the country’s GDP. As the access to infrastructure to various in urban areas is not uniform in India, marginalization and deprivations aspects can be reduced through better urban governance.⁸In the New York Global Summit (2015), new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target to reduce at least by 50% of population of all ages living in poverty; increase substantially the number of youths and adults with skills for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.⁹

Prof. Ronald T. Chua (1996) of AIMin his Case Study contends that earnings of a livelihood activity, primarily engaged in for survival, are mainly used for consumption, rather than for enterprise growthwith limited potential for growth and employment generation. Contrastingly, entrepreneurial activities, beyond alleviating poverty, have more potential surplus and additional employment. Microenterprise operators having limited knowledge, resources or skills, make entry into activities with less competition and narrow markets. Most of the micro entrepreneurial activities carried out being home-based, security of housing tenure is an important factor for SHGs.¹⁰

Findings of the Study Report of the VOICE (2008) on some districts of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are that SHG livelihood activities were based on tailoring, embroidery, hair salon, dairy, garments and service enterprises, food processing, fisheries, cement products manufacturing, piggery, poultry, sericulture, handicrafts, bookbinding etc. The quality of training leading to entrepreneurship development was good in specialized institutions with custom designed curriculum inputs and for trades which required latest tools, technology, value addition and product diversification, marketing skills, packaging and market survey. Networks could help in securing backward linkages of input markets and forward linkages of output markets, apart from other suitable solutions.¹¹P. Purushotham (2009) in his study in the region of high poverty (9 states including Tripura and Assam) reveals that there was under-loaning, resultantly, SHG members were forced to choose low-investment-low-productive-project incomes leading to negligible occupational shift. The entrepreneurial aptitude of SHGs is lacking. The productivity levels and market conditions in several parts of India do not permit highly lucrative micro-enterprise opportunities. Given the background, the solution is to extend the quality, holistic and effective development support to the SHGs with access to technology, marketing and institutional credit to help them graduate towards self-employment.¹²

A. Khaja (2006) in his book contends that urban areas are subjected to continual change in the dynamic and competitive environment and that relating to the class 1 cities of Odissa, 76% of males and 34% of females of urban poor were engaged in different informal and formal activities. Out of eight categories majority were engaged as daily workers, followed by private jobs, petty traders, domestic workers, cleaners and washermen and rickshaw pullers. Very few were engaged in skilled and semi-skilled jobs, such as carpentry, masonry, bamboo net making, mechanics and hardly few in government jobs giving a great variation of occupational structure. Mostly the urban poor were engaged in informal sector having no regular income.¹³N. Kumar and others (2015) in their paper state that inviting for active participation in governmental schemes, SHG members should be motivated to play a more dynamic and enterprising role upon reduction of the communication gap between bankers and beneficiaries. Strong network is required for effective and proper marketing of products and services of micro-enterprises linked with SHGs.¹⁴

The Economic Review of Tripura (2015) reflects that the State has not been able to attract desired private investments in the industrial sector from the rest of India; resultantly it remains an industrially backward with unique economic bottle necks arising out of remoteness and poor connectivity, weak resource base, poor infrastructure and shallow markets. However, there is the potentiality for industrial opportunities and employment generation through promotion of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME), agri-based food processing units, export-import business with Bangladesh, tea and rubber, gas-based industries, handloom and handicrafts. Having 3447 registered MSME, the contribution of the manufacturing sector is 7.71% in 2014-15.¹⁵The Skill Gap Assessment study (2012) conducted by the Industry and Commerce Department, Government of Tripura holds that lack of suitable opportunities in Tripura helped many youths migrated to other states for better employment, while quite a good number of skilled people from outside Tripura are engaged in the industrial houses indicating a demand-supply mismatch. Skilled manpower gap is witnessed in sectors like rubber, tea, construction material, civil works, food processing, health, electronics, automobiles, tourism, IT and ITES, gold jewelry designing, natural gas, agro-based industries, handicraft and handloom. Strategies should be for skills required to serve existing industries and services; skills in sectors having job prospects in other parts of India and having potential to attract industries with in the state and to create infrastructure to train the manpower in respective sector with reputed private/government training institutes. Enhancing employability of the youths of the state and identifying core industry sectors for employment should be the objectives of the state.¹⁶

Uma Rani and H.S. Shylendra (2002) in their paper explain the phenomenon not only in terms of the micro-level dynamics but also rural-urban migration from a broader perspective. Widespread labour migration in India is explained more by structural factors like inequality in land ownership, poverty and agricultural backwardness than by models dealing solely with motivations of maximizing the family’s income and employment.To address the issue, policy initiatives for reversing the trend of migration should be taken.¹⁷Arnaud Daymard (2015)views that entrepreneurs of both sexes are relatively scarce in India compared to peer countries. Female entrepreneurs face gender biases stemming specifically from inheritance laws and this can be addressed by ensuring complete mandatory education for all girl children with encouragement to pursue higher education. Most entrepreneurs in India often engage in subsistence small informal activities. Female entrepreneurship in India is rising mostly without workers due to a lack of other employment opportunities. Retail trade, wearing apparel, education, health, and other personal services (beauty treatment, hairdressing, cleaning of textile, household maintenance) are the sectors, where more than 50% of female entrepreneurs with workers operate.¹⁸

Manisha Raj (2014) in her study states that despite significant problems in a male-dominated society, Indian women have proved their mettle in large and small industries, where Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, Ila Bhatt, Indira Nooyi and Chanda Kochar are successful names. Education and employment are the two basic tools which can change the socio-economic status of females for India with 614.4 million femalesout of 1.27 billion in total. In urban India, women participation in the workforce is impressive. Out of 131 countries, India ranks 11th from the bottom in female labor force participation. Despite government policies and promotion strategies do provide new opportunities to women, few have come forward as entrepreneurs. Workforce participation rate of females in the urban sector was 13.8 in 2009-10.¹⁹Anjali Singh (2014) in her study contends that the GOI has defined women entrepreneurs (1984) as an enterprise owned and controlled by women having a minimum financial interest of 51% of the capital and giving at least 51% of the employment generated in the enterprise to women. Strength-wise women entrepreneurs arecapable of achieving self-economic independence, generating employment opportunities for others by keeping pace with her personal, family and social life. Their weaknesses are absence of proper support, cooperation and back-up from their own family members and surroundings forcing them to drop the idea of excelling in the enterprising field. Opportunities for women entrepreneurship are available government schemes for doing business in the emerging sectors like eco-friendly technology, IT-enabled enterprises, tourism industry etc. Threats include fear of expansion and lack of access to technology; lack of self–confidence, credit discrimination; poorinfrastructure and family ties of Indian women.²⁰

Dr. R. Sivanesan (2014) in his study in both rural and urban areas in Kanyakumari district of Tamilnadu states that entrepreneurship in women has not been capitalized in India in a way in which it should have been. Our increasing dependence on service sector has created many entrepreneurial opportunities. In urban India, although women are entrepreneurs in 4 Es (electricity, electronics, energy and engineering), yet they are mostly confined to petty business and tiny cottage industries. Their participation in trade, industry and commerce, requiring entrepreneurship, is still poor mainly because of the problems associated with their gender roles. Majority of the urban women entrepreneurs select the business because it is a self-identity and social status. Independence, need for additional income and opportunities for self-fulfillment and family occupation are key factors for being enterprising. Women need proper training institutes for enhancing their level of work-knowledge.²¹

Umakanta Tripathy (2015) in his study views that SHG members taking up multiple activities have increased from about 30% during pre-group formation situation including supplementary activities like animal husbandry, poultry etc. and non-farm activities like petty shop, flower selling business etc. and that the SHG concept acts as a launching pad for livelihood intervention and helps for proper capacity building. The success of micro enterprises depends on identification of enterprises with local talents.²²Martha Alter Chen and G. Raveendran (2014) in their study found that in 2011-12, 80% of the urban workforce in India was informally employed, of which just over half were self-employed. Domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors and waste pickers groups together represented 23% of total urban employment and 29% of urban informal employment.²³Ranbir Singh (2012) in his paper says that the concept of entrepreneurship is of recent origin. Entrepreneurs are treated instrumental in initiating and sustaining socio-economic development. Small scale industrial units owned by women entrepreneurs in India are 1.39 lakh in Kerala (13%), 1.30 lakh in Tamil Nadu (12%), 863 in Tripura (0.08%), 11757 in Assam (1.11%) and the share of these in 7 other North Eastern States is less than1%. Emerging sectors where women can exploit their latent talent in India are eco-friendly technology, bio-technology, IT-enabled enterprises, event management, tourism industry, telecom, plastic materials, vermiculture, mineral water, sericulture, floriculture, herbal and health care and food, fruits and vegetable processing.²⁴

Dr. Bharati Verma (2014) in her paper upholds that an entrepreneur is an economic man maximizing profits by innovation. Women entrepreneurs has many functions, viz., exploring prospects of new enterprises, undertaking risks, embarking on innovations, control of business and providing leadership in all aspects of business. Role of women as entrepreneurs should be imaginative with well-planned project preparation; able of taking risks and proficient in planning; capable of raising funds; earning profit and operational capability.²⁵Shabana Gandhi (2010) in her research paper contends that occupational pattern of SHG members have changed. About 65% of SHG members before joining groups were small and marginal farmers and after joining about 30% of them are doing small business activities like small shops, beauty parlour, knitting and stitching in Solan district. The social impact of SHG-bank linkage has motivated women to live in unity. On economic impact, banks’ support of microfinance to SHGs has enabled them to produce and sell hand-made products and rear animals and sell milk. Most of the members being ignorant about the institutional credit linkage, change in occupational pattern has been disturbed.²⁶

The Governor on 23^rd March, 2018 in his address to the Tripura Legislative Assembly outlined the ‘Vision’ of the present Government of Tripura with a commitment to pursue a development strategy focusing on ensuring up-gradation of standard of living and providing an all-round development through an efficient and transparent administration. Revolving round the inclusive development model in the spirit of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ (With All and Development for All), the ‘Vision ‘deliberates on establishing bamboo/rubber processing industries; quality production, commercialization and branding queen variety of pineapple; promotion of high-tech food processing and packaging industries with special emphasis on fruit processing; establishing Venture Capital Fund to boost modern industries; promotion of organic cultivation; promoting cooperative societies and women’s SHGs in poultry and dairy sector; imparting professional training on bamboo-based products; promoting IT and gas-based industries; creating opportunities of entrepreneurship; skill development training; providing interest-free short-term loans to SHGs; management training on business, hospitality, marketing, tourism, hotel, hospital, food pressing and initiative towards vocationalization of education. The highest priority is attached to improving quality of life of urban citizens with provision of civic amenities and making Agartala a ‘Smart City’ including implementation of AMRUT Scheme. Upon causing significant improvement in “Ease of Doing Business”, a policy for Start-up Tripura will be formulated to encourage entrepreneurship, strengthen the infrastructure and institutional framework for setting up SEZ for different sectors; to develop North-East Tourism Circuit and establish suitable skill development institutes. Women’s SHGs will be encouraged and empowered by providing development support for micro-enterprises and ULBs will be strengthened to perform effectively as vibrant democratic units for which annual comprehensive training of elective representatives will be conducted for capacity building.²⁷

METHODS:

The paper relates to urban areas of Tripura in all its eight districts for which 14 ULBs have been randomly selected out of 20 ULBs. Collection of requisite information is done through structured schedules through the direct face-to-face interview and observations in the field from the randomly chosen SHGs. This paper is mainly based on the primary data collection, although the secondary data have been collected from several of sources. The sample size of the study is 353 SHGs. Out of 4099 members (98% being women) 1050 respondents represented on the whole, which is 25.6% of the total members (3 respondents per SHG). The information collected from the above sources has been processed with the help of simple statistical tools for arriving at inferences to meet the objectives of the study.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS:

Occupational distribution and status of employment days among members before and after joining SHGs

Occupational Distribution among SHG Members:

Respondents have divulged about the impact of SHG activities on the occupational or trade-based status before joining the SHG and post joining the SHGsof all 4099 members of 353 SHGs. As many as 29 occupations/trades/groups of trades have been identified and the information as to the number of SHG members used to carry out trades before joining SHGs and thosedo post-joining SHG is shown in the Tables 1and 2 for 5 ULBs in 4 districts and for 9 ULBs in 4 other districts of Tripura.

Table1: Distributionof Occupation among SHG Members in North Tripura, Unakoti, Dhalai and Khowai Districts

Name of Trade / Occupation	North Tripura		Unokoti				Dhalai		Khowai
	Dharmanagar		Kumarghat		Kailashahar		Kamalpur		Teliamura
	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After
1.Daily Wage Earner	30	2	82	5	54	4	22	0	94	2
2.Teaching in private institutions	3	1	9	9	9	6	8	6	5	11
3.Unemployed	43	0	76	0	74	0	18	0	66	0
4.Jogali (Helper to mason)	9	0	8	0	16	0	4	0	11	0
5.Home maker	0	0	2	0	3	2	0	0	7	3
6.Cultivation/Agri- Allied activities including Fishery	4	0	6	0	12	0	0	0	23	0
7.Poultry Farming	0	11	0	18	0	15	0	10	0	34
8.Mushroom Cultivation	0	16	0	12	0	9	0	0	0	22
9.Dairy Farming	0	5	0	23	0	19	0	5	0	32
10.Bidi Worker	10	0	9	0	16	0	0	0	31	0
11.Grocery	0	5	2	6	4	9	0	0	5	13
12.Artisan/Toy Making/Book Binding	0	0	5	8	11	0	1	16	3	13
13.Vegetable vending	0	0	5	5	3	5	0	0	4	7
14.Private job/Domestic Workers	10	0	12	7	34	0	29	0	51	2
15.Weaving	3	0	19	0	5	2	5	0	2	5
16.Self-occupied business/Rice Selling/flower Selling	4	0	11	4	16	5	4	0	20	6
17.Food Processing (pickle/papad/Chips making)	4	11	9	18	4	18	2	7	8	25
18.Tea Shop/Sweet Shop	0	0	1	4	3	4	1	0	4	3
19.Tailoring /Readymade Garments	4	19	14	52	9	53	6	12	5	41
20.Fast Food/Fried Pea/Peanut Selling	0	6	0	15	0	19	0	6	0	16
21.Fruit Selling	0	0	0	4	0	0	0	2	0	2
22.Stone/Brick Chips Making Business	0	0	0	0	0	12	0	0	0	0
23.Handicraft/Agarvati/Cushion/Coir Mat Making/Artificial Ornaments making	0	30	0	46	0	53	0	23	0	68
24.Asha worker	0	1	0	6	0	2	0	1	0	3
25.Home-made food Selling	0	3	0	2	0	0	0	3	0	14
26.Stationeries and Cosmetics	0	7	0	12	0	23	0	7	0	10
27.Electric Business/Decorator/Electrian	0	0	0	6	0	4	0	0	0	7
28.Beauty Parlour	0	7	0	2	0	6	0	3	0	4
29. Nursery Raising/Flower Selling	0	0	2	8	5	8	1	0	8	4
	124	124	272	272	278	278	101	101	347	347

Source: Field Data

Table 2: Distribution of Occupation among SHG Members in West, Sepahijala, Gomati and South Districts

Name of Trade / Occupation	West Tripura				Sepahijala
	AMC		Ranirbazar		Bishalgarh		Sonamura
	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After
1.Daily Wage Earner	193	33	99	3	30	1	20	0
2.Teaching in private institutions	34	5	9	9	4	2	3	1
3.Unemployed	625	2	143	1	24	0	12	0
4.Jogali (Helper to mason)	13	11	7	6	3	0	4	1
5.Home maker	217	23	35	0	0	0	8	0
6.Cultivation/Agri Allied activities including Fishery	5	46	11	0	0	0	2	0
7.Poultry Farming	0	66	0	6	0	12	0	10
8.Mushroom Cultivation	0	54	0	26	0	4	0	4
9.Dairy Farming	0	75	0	21	0	10	0	10
10.Bidi Worker	2	4	13	0	5	0	4	0
11.Grocery	11	41	1	5	0	0	1	1
12.Artisan/Toy Making/Book Binding	6	65	6	11	2	0	12	8
13.Vegetable vending	9	39	0	5	0	3	2	0
14.Private job/Domestic Workers	151	3	73	0	26	0	20	0
15.Weaving	21	32	6	12	3	5	0	0
16.Self-occupied business/Rice Selling/flower Selling	50	58	20	0	7	3	15	0
17.Food Processing(pickle/papad)/Chips making	17	112	11	38	2	10	3	20
18.Tea Shop/Sweet Shop	7	7	3	6	0	0	0	0
19.Tailoring /Readymade Garments	46	193	21	67	2	14	3	12
20.Fast Food/Fried Pea/Groundnut Selling	0	71	0	14	0	7	0	0
21.Fruit Selling	0	15	0	13	0	1	0	2
22.Stone/Brick Chips Making Business	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
23.Handicraft/Agarvati/Cushion/Coir Mat Making/Artificial Ornaments making	0	249	0	145	0	24	0	29
24.Asha worker	0	5	0	0	0	0	0	1
25.Home-made food Selling	0	28	0	10	0	2	0	0
26.Stationeries and Cosmetics	0	52	0	21	0	7	0	8
27.Electric Business/Decorator/Electrician	0	67	0	14	0	3	0	2
28.Beauty Parlour	0	27	0	15	0	2	0	0
29.Nursery Raising/Flower Selling	6	30	2	12	3	1	0	0
Total	1413	1413	460	460	111	111	109	109

Continue Table 2

Name of Trade / Occupation	Gomati				South Tripura
	Amarpur		Udaipur		Belonia		Sabroom		Santirbazar
	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After
1.Daily Wage Earner	46	0	95	2	35	1	44	2	26	0
2.Teaching in private institutions	1	1	1	0	5	5	3	3	0	0
3.Unemployed	55	1	106	0	21	0	51	0	13	0
4.Jogali (Helper to mason)	4	0	14	0	9	0	5	0	3	0
5.Home maker	8	0	6	4	2	0	5	0	0	0
6.Cultivation/Agri Allied activities including Fishery	3	0	52	0	6	0	15	0	1	0
7.Poultry Farming	0	16	0	24	0	4	0	10	0	6
8.Mushroom Cultivation	0	12	0	21	0	7	0	6	0	5
9.Dairy Farming	0	10	0	31	0	5	0	19	0	6
10.Bidi Worker	8	6	19	0	2	0	6	0	4	0
11.Grocery	0	6	8	10	1	2	1	1	1	2
12.Artisan/Toy Making/Book Binding	4	4	0	19	3	4	6	11	0	2
13.Vegetable vending	4	11	8	12	7	0	4	5	2	2
14.Private job/Domestic Workers	9	2	43	0	5	0	16	0	5	0
15.Weaving	2	0	5	3	3	0	2	0	2	0
16.Self-occupied business/Rice Selling/ flower Selling	4	0	6	2	4	0	4	2	0	0
17.Food Processing (pickle/papad)/Chips making	0	6	10	50	4	11	1	15	4	12
18.Tea Shop/Sweet Shop			0	7	0	0	0	2	1	2
19.Tailoring /Readymade Garments	4	10	9	33	5	25	0	0	2	6
20.Fast Food/Fried Pea/Groundnut Selling	0	5	0	31	0	5	0	2	0	2
21.Fruit Selling	0	2	0	0	0	1	3	34	0	0
22.Stone/Brick Chips Making Business	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
23.Handicraft/Agarvati/Cushion/Coir Mat Making/Artificial Ornaments making	0	30	0	96	0	34	0	35	0	13
24.Asha worker	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
25.Home-made food Selling	0	4	0	8	0	2	0	4	0	3
26.Stationeries and Cosmetics	0	2	0	10	0	2	0	1	0	2
27.Electric Business/Decorator/Electrician	0	14	0	15	0	2	0	3	0	0
28.Beauty Parlour	0	3	0	6	0	0	0	9	0	0
29.Nursery Raising/Flower Selling	0	6	7	5	0	2	0	2	1	2
Total	152	152	389	389	112	112	166	166	65	65

Source: Processed Field Data

Occupational Distribution and Change of Status among SHG Members: This is shown in the Table 3.

Table 3: Occupation-wise Number of Members and Proportionate Change before and after joining SHGs

Name of Trade / Occupation	Number of SHG members and Proportionate Status
Name of Trade / Occupation	Before		After
1. Daily Wage Earner	870	21.22%	55	1.34
2.Teaching in private institutions	94	2.29%	59	1.44
3. Unemployed	1327	32.37%	4	0.1
4. Jogali (Helper to mason)	110	2.68%	18	0.44
5. Home maker	293	7.15%	32	0.78
6. Cultivation/Agri Allied activities including Fishery	140	3.42%	46	1.12
7. Poultry Farming	0	0.00%	242	5.9
8. Mushroom Cultivation	0	0.00%	198	4.83
9. Dairy Farming	0	0.00%	271	6.61
10. Bidi Worker	129	3.15%	10	0.24
11. Grocery	35	0.85%	101	2.46
12. Artisan/Toy Making/Book Binding	59	1.44%	161	3.93
13. Vegetable Vending	48	1.17%	94	2.29
14. Private job/Domestic Workers	484	11.81%	14	0.34
15. Weaving	78	1.90%	59	1.44
16. Self-occupied business/Rice Selling/Flower Selling	165	4.03%	80	1.95
17. Food Processing(pickle/papad)/Chips making	79	1.93%	353	8.61
18. Tea Shop/Sweet Shop	20	0.49%	35	0.85
19. Tailoring /Readymade Garments	130	3.17%	537	13.1
20. Fast Food/Fried Pea/Groundnut Selling	0	0.00%	199	4.85
21. Fruit Selling	3	0.07%	76	1.85
22. Stone/Brick Chips Making Business	0	0.00%	12	0.29
23. Handicraft/Agarvati/Cushion/Coir Mat Making/Artificial Ornaments making	0	0.00%	875	21.35
24. Asha worker	0	0.00%	20	0.49
25. Home-made food Selling	0	0.00%	83	2.02
26. Stationeries and Cosmetics	0	0.00%	164	4
27. Electric Business/Decorator/Electrician	0	0.00%	137	3.34
28. Beauty Parlouring	0	0.00%	84	2.05
29. Nursery Raising/Flower Selling	35	0.85%	80	1.95
	4099	100.00%	4099	100

Source: Processed Field Data based on Tables 1and 2

From the Table 3 it is observed that 4.85%, 4.83% and 5.9% of the total members respectively are engaged in fast food business, mushroom cultivation and poultry farming during SHG period, while there were none before. Prior to SHG formation about 40% of total members remained either unemployed or homemakers. The pre-dominant occupations prior to SHG formation were daily wage earning, domestic service, cultivation and agri-allied activities, ‘bidi’ making and self-occupied petty business. During the SHG period due to training, awareness and group exposure, SHG members have changed their occupations to various types of occupations. Thus, there has been impact in terms of change in occupations or trade-based livelihood patterns. Majorly, SHG members have chosen the activities like poultry farming, mushroom cultivation, dairy farming (6.61%), artisan/toy-making/book binding, food processing (8.61%) and tailoring/ready-made garments business, fast food items selling, handicraft, agarvati, cushion, coir making, artificial ornaments making (21.35%).

District/ULB-wise Self-Employment Status of SHG Members:

The comparative status of average number of man-days per member per month before and after joining SHGsin selected 14 ULBs under 8 districts is reflected in the Table 4.

Table 4: Self-Employment Status of SHG Members before and after joining the SHGs

Name of the District	Name of the ULB	Average number of man-days due to Self-Employment per Member per Month
Name of the District	Name of the ULB	Before joining SHGs	After joining SHGs
1. North Tripura	1. Dharmanagar	4	14
2. Unakoti	2. Kumarghat	6	21
	3. Kailashahar	5	19
3. Dhalai	4. Kamalpur	7	16
4. Khowai	5. Teliamura	3	19
5. West Tripura	6. AMC	6	24
	7. Ranirbazar	4	23
6. Sepahijala	8. Bishalgarh	3	16
	9. Sonamura	2.5	18
7. Gomati	10. Amarpur	4	16
	11. Udaipur	5	19
8. South Tripura	12. Belonia	4.5	17
	13. Sabroom	4	18
	14. Santirbazar	4	14
Average no. of man-days of Employment in the study area		4.43	18.14

Source: Processed Field data

The Table 4 reflects that average self-employment status prior to SHG formation was 4.43 man-days per member per month, after joining SHGs the status has improved to 18.14 man-days per member per month. Prior to joining SHGs, the lowest self-employment rate per member per month was 2.5 days in Sonamura NP and the highest was 7 in Kamalpur MC. From the Table 3, clearly the overall self-employment days is impressively higher because of volume self-employment by members who remained unemployed (32% of the total), homemakers (7.15%), domestic workers (11.81%) prior to their joining SHGs. ULB-wise, the highest average self-employment days per member per month has occurred in AMC, being 24during SHG-period as against 6 earlier. The Table 4 further indicates that district-wise, the gap of self-employment days between prior to SHG formation and during SHG period per member per month is the highest in West Tripura District (18.5) and lowest in Dhalai District (9). Thus, it is found that man-days per member per month during SHG period has increased by 4.09 folds the man-days relating to the pre-SHG employment, indicating a tremendous improvement due to the impact of awareness and economic activities of SHGs, bearing an impact on the change of occupational pattern of SHG members.

Brief impact status on changes of occupational patterns among urban women participants in SHGs of Tripura:

The concept of women entrepreneurship in Tripura is of recent origin. Our increasing dependence on service sector has created many entrepreneurial opportunities. There are 170588 registered unemployed people in the urban areas of Tripura (Economic Census in 2013). The maximum number of workers are now engaged in retail trade, education, manufacturing, services, transport, accommodation, storage, community and personal services in the State. There are instances of women SHGs becoming entrepreneurs through the SHG-bank linkage project implementation in the urban areas of Tripura, but the self-driven entrepreneurships are very less as is revealed in the focus group discussion (FGD). In the true sense of the definition of the Government of India, SHGs in Tripura have mostly not qualified as entrepreneurs (as they do not possess a minimum financial interest of 51% of the capital and do not provide minimum 51% of the employment generated in the enterprise to their members), as is revealed in the FGD.In the narrow sense, however, there are micro-enterprises run by many SHGs in urban Tripura. Most female entrepreneurs or micro operators among SHGs in Urban Tripura function in the unincorporated or unorganized sector having no employees. Highly skilled workers are still brought from outside the State.

Based on the FGD with the SHGs, a SWOT analysis has been made on urban SHG entrepreneurs of Tripura, according to which Strengths for becoming entrepreneurs are high female literacy rate; least discrimination towards female (as revealed in our earlier study), women members’ participation in micro economic activities, some track record of success, skilled and educated women and their good organizational ability. Weaknesses of SHGs, inter alia are lack of proper support; resistance of own family members from doing regular works; very meager capital; lack of entrepreneurial attitudes/professionalism/self-confidence, inability of marketing products and lack of creditworthiness; time constraints for occupations (average 3-6 hours), instances of entrepreneurial failures and lack of entrepreneurial attitude. Opportunities available for urban women for taking up entrepreneurial activities are new areas of business like IT-enabled services, tourism industry, mineral water, herbal, health care and wellness, food/fruit processing, ice cream, rubber-based processing and readymade garments, industrial opportunities through promotion of MSME, export-import business with Bangladesh (on tea and rubber, gas-based services, handloom and handicrafts). Threats likely to be faced include competition with peers, market intelligence on input-output availability and their real time prices, access to technological innovation, dealing with male workers, family ties, credit discrimination, poor infrastructure, non-committal behaviour of bankers, too much dependence upon Government grants and bank loan. Although government policies and promotion strategies have offered new opportunities to women, yet few have come forward as entrepreneurs. The State Government has mentioned in its ‘Vision’ (March, 2018) document about the fresh initiatives to be taken for driving the women towards self-employment through entrepreneurships route via SHG-bank linkage.

Findings and Recommendations:

Findings:

Based on the analysis above, the following are the findings-

a. Women of different backgrounds mostly unemployed or homemakers before joining SHGs are now pursuing multiple occupations. They are also doing single economic activity after joining SHGs, apart from group activities for generating additional income. Depending upon the activities average size of group members engaged in each occupation after joining the SHGs is between 3 and 8.

b. Occupation or trade-wise the highest number of members engaged is in dairy activity, followed by poultry and mushroom cultivation in AMC area. Handicraft, agarvati, cushion making and coir mat making haveemployed the highest number of SHG members. Mostly women have performed income generating activities as part timers just as supportive occupations and hours spent for these is low ranging from 3 to 6 hours depending upon their family obligation. Consequently, the production and productivity of SHGs has remained low in the urban areas. FGD reveals that due to engagement in doing household chores SHG members could hardly manage time for doing group activities and so they consider self-employment in SHGs as only supplementary as these works do not fetch enough income to give up their house-hold works.

c. Before joining SHGs women used to pursue 18 purely temporary occupations. During SHG period they are self-employed in 29multiple or single occupations. Broadly, 32.37% of the total members were unemployed, 21.22%engaged in daily works and 11.81% as domestic and private workers before joining SHGs. But during SHG period due to occupational shift among the members, unemployment has reduced to 0.10% and wage earners declined to 1.34%.

d. There has been impact in terms of change in occupations or trade during SHG era like members have taken up fast food business, mushroom cultivation and poultry farming, while there were none before. Daily wage earning, unemployment, home-making, cultivation and agri-allied activities etc. were pre-dominant occupations, but during the SHG period due to training, awareness and group exposure, SHG members have been attracted to diversified economic activities.

e. Majorly, SHG members have chosen activities like poultry farming, mushroom cultivation, dairy farming, artisan/toy-making, food processing, tailoring, fast food, handicraft, agarvati, cushion, coir making, stationeries and cosmetics business, indicating change in occupational pattern from agri-based traditional to non-traditional occupations to some extent.

f. Average employment status prior to SHG activities was 4.43 man-days per member per month, which has improved to 18.14 man-days after joining the SHG. The overall self-employment man-days per member per month during SHG period has increased by 4.09 folds the pre-SHG employment man-days. There is no uniformity of status in self-employment days in inter-ULBs and inter-districts.

g. SWOT analysis on prospects of entrepreneurship in SHG women is indicative of the fact that inherent weaknesses and external threats are outweighing strengths and opportunities of SHGs. Entrepreneurial attitude of SHGs has not been capitalized in Tripura at the desired level, because SHGs hardly have taken any risk in doing business, they have limited resources/skills, market access, learning experience and knowledge and social capital linkageamong SHG members in Tripura.

h. The Prime Minister Awaas Yojana (PMAY-Urban) taken up during the last two years providing housing facilities to the urban poor households will definitely boost the morale of urban SHG members too, as some of them are beneficiaries. However, some SHG occupations demand land for running their business.

i. Micro-finance to SHGs in Tripura has largely been a supply-driven approach. The direct access to institutional credit to women is very limited and suffers from the sex bias in extending it to them.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

The following are the recommendations-

a. Programmes of economic activities for sustainable occupations should be capable of generating enough income with full-time engagement (7-8 hours) of SHG members. Policy makers, agencies and ULBs should design an approach to bring in substantial technical inputs of the right kind that is demanded by SHG members as per the market demand for the product.

b. Women should be encouraged to increasingly participate in changed occupations. ULBs in Tripura should come out of institutional weaknesses, poor financial health and lack of basic physical and social infrastructure. SHGs should go beyond traditional occupations having future prospects as per the Tripura Government ‘Vision’ document adopted in 2018.

c. Most of SHG activities carried out being home-based, the Government land can be allotted on lease basis to SHGs for a 3-year term and may be extended based on their performance, apart from land allotment to eligible urban SHG members to secure their housing facilities.

d. Line Departments, ULBs, banks and Urban Development Department should recognize their roles and importance of SHGs in the true spirit of terms and coordinate well. Proper occupation-based motivational training towards effective, holistic and comprehensive self-employment programme should be provided to SHG members with access to latest tools, technology, marketing, entrepreneurship development, marketing skills, packaging, market survey, product pricing and institutional credit of sizeable amount so that occupational shift by urban SHGs takes place in the areas having opportunities with high productivity level in Tripura and in the North-East India. Misconception about SHGs being unworthy of credit needs to be dispelled from the mind of bankers, ULBs and line departments.

e. Employment potential of local resources should be enhanced and value addition can be created through processing locally available material for the local and non-local market. Promotion of marketing of the SHG produced goods should be made by organizing exhibitions/fairs at different levels by provisioning market intelligence, development of markets, consultancy services and institutional arrangement for marketing of the goods including exports.

f. Minimum requirement of infrastructure for training should be met. Networks of activity-based groups of working poor should be developed for enterprises with the help in securing backward linkages of input markets and forward linkages of output markets. This can be done by imbibing practice of ‘social capital’ in SHGs for building relationships with customers and suppliers for expanding businesses.

g. The variation of occupational structure in Tripura should be reduced. Tripura urban women in SHGs need to be strengthened for taking up new enterprises having prospects, undertaking risks, embarking on innovations, management and leadership in all aspects of business. They should be motivated to come up with original ideas, planning to formulate own project, capable of raising funds/earning profit and operational capability to outweigh SHGs’ existing weaknesses. The State Government and ULBs should bring about infrastructural facilities for SHGs so that existing threats could be nullified and opportunities available for them and those spelt out by the Government of Tripura in 2018 in its ‘Vision’ can be availed of towards entrepreneurship development in SHG members in urban areas of Tripura for their sustainable occupational change, employment and income.

h. New opportunities given to women, should be utilized for encouraging SHGs to groom themselves as entrepreneurs. Full utilization of education and employment, basic tools for changing the socio-economic status of females in urban areas, have to be made by ULBs as these have found place in government policies and promotion strategies.

i. The demand-supply skill gap on manpower in sectors should be bridged. Emerging sectors where women can exploit their latent talent in North-East region including Tripura are eco-friendly technology, bio-technology, event management, plastic materials, vermiculture, mineral water, sericulture and floriculture by exploiting the bright opportunities as articulated in the ‘Vision’ document of Tripura Government (2018) for the SHGs. There is a great scope to expand small scale industrial units (0.08% now) and new women entrepreneurs should be motivated to this sector in Tripura.

CONCLUSION:

There has been economic impact on SHGs by way of change of occupational pattern from no-work or wage-earners to self-employed in multiple livelihood activities or businesses due to entrepreneurial skills of women participants in SHGs. But shift to non-traditional occupations remained very poor and entrepreneurial activities among majority SHG women havenot taken place in the true sense of the term in the urban areas of Tripura. Diverse economic occupations adopted by SHGs should have suitable developmental support with new technology and training leading to skill up-gradation. Cluster approach should be preferred by selecting a few key activities based on the local availability of resources including infrastructure. ULBs in Tripura and other North-East Indian states should come out of institutional weaknesses and take the lead for developing entrepreneurship among SHGs in urban areas of Tripura through better urban governance. The occupational structure in the urban is dynamic, bearing a phenomenon of rural-urban migration for works in Tripura leaving a scope for a separate study.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

The authors are grateful to the National Institute of Technology, Agartala, Tripura for giving an opportunity to carry out the work smoothly. We are also grateful to the officials of the ULBs, the district and State administration of Tripura for providing us necessary assistance to collect the data used extensively in the work.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Received on 19.07.2018 Modified on 16.08.2018

Int. J. Rev. and Res. Social Sci. 2018; 6(4): 415-426 .

DOI: 10.5958/2454-2687.2018.00036.9