From Bachat to Backend: The Village Circle That Rewired the Economy
Platforms like NABARD’s e-Shakti have enabled digital accounting and financial profiling for SHGs across multiple districts. Schemes such as PMGDISHA have built digital literacy where it once seemed out of reach
In the 1950s, rural Indian women sustained the economy in silence. They tilled land they did not own, fetched water for households that did not name them, and ran invisible ledgers of obligation and care. Their labour had no institutional anchor. Their savings, if any, were collective. Credit was not extended by banks, but by belief, earned in the slow rhythm of trust.
In 1992, just 500 self-help groups dotted this landscape. Today, there are over 90.86 lakh SHGs mobilising more than 10.05 crore women. What began as circles of thrift have matured into financial ecosystems, linking women not only to one another but also to the deeper frameworks of governance.
What unfolds here is not merely a testament to collective will. It is also a reflection of the understated architecture of public institutions that chose to listen before they led. Platforms like NABARD’s e-Shakti have enabled digital accounting and financial profiling for SHGs across multiple districts. Schemes such as PMGDISHA have built digital literacy where it once seemed out of reach.
BharatNet, which has connected over 2.18 lakh Gram Panchayats with high-speed internet, brings connectivity to village panchayats. Through initiatives like Lakhpati Didi, more than 1.48 crore SHG women now earn over ₹1 lakh annually, making credit not just accessible but central to rural planning.
The journey ahead demands that SHGs transcend and become laboratories of enterprise. Agro-processing, digital ventures, and green technologies must become daily practice rather than distant ambitions. The question is no longer whether women can participate. It is whether they can shape. To build ecosystems of entrepreneurship and resilience is not a refinement. It is a necessity. The foundation is strong. What is needed now is transformation with trust.
She may borrow the device, but the decisions are hers. Her power lies not in programming languages, but in the precision with which she reads people, risk, and possibility. In her world, the backend is not a server. It is a living network of women, rooted in care and rising through action.
Some revolutions do not begin with announcements. They begin with record books, patient saving, and quiet determination. The SHG movement in India has done more than open bank accounts. It has redrawn the contours of economic belonging. This is a narrative still unfolding, sustained by the quiet resolve of women and the frameworks that have learned to walk with them, not ahead of them.
The article is authored by Malika Pandey, who is a public policy professional with years of experience working across key ministries of the Government of India
