SUFFiciENcy EcONOMy ANd GRASSROOtS DEvElOPMENt

292
The Meaning of Sufficiency Economy
International Conference
It is observed that the poor members of groups under study have benefited
more in terms of improvement in asset, loans for meeting emergency needs etc.
Members of ‘non poor ’ category have realized benefits more in terms of
improvement in asset followed by redemption of debt and other purposes.
Regarding the tangible result 48.13% of the women in the study area have
created income yielding asset. They are able to improve the economic conditions of
the family by creating assets like goat, sheep, poultry, milch animal, coir making
machines, leather stitching machines etc. The details can be had from the following
table.
Table – 6 Benefits to Members
Sl. No. Category Poor members Others Total
1. Improvement in asset 78
(35.94)
115
(62.50)
193
(48.13)
2. Improvement in food intake 91
(41.94)
- 91
3. Improvement in education 13
(5.99)
4. Redemption of debt 17
(7.84)
5. Loans for meeting emergency needs 18
(8.29)
21
(11.41)
39
(21.20)
9
(4.89)
34
(8.48)
56
(13.97)
27
(6.73)
Total
217
(100.00)
184
(100.00)
401
(100.00)
Source: Field Survey.
Note: Figures within parenthesis indicate percentages.
Perusal of Table – 6 reveals that in the case of poor members 35.94% of the
members have created assets as against 62.5% in the case of ‘non – poor’ members.
Apart from asset creation, the loan have also been used for education of children,
redemption of old – debt and for meeting emergency needs like medical expenses,
marriage expenses, social function, cloth purchase, purchase of household articles,
funeral expenses, redeeming of gold jewels, payment of electricity bills, etc. It is
found that while 48.13% of the total loans were utilized for production purposes and
the rest 51.47% for consumption purposes. For consumption purposes that amount
of loan ranged from Rs.150 to 1,200 while the production loans ranged from
Rs.1,800 to 8,000/-.