Self-Help Groups are voluntary congregation of persons who share needs or problems that are not being addressed by existing institutions or other types of groups.  It is an informal association of 10 to 20 poor women belonging to same village and sharing a common socio economic background who are organized around saving and credit facility. Funds for credit activities come through regular saving deposited by all of its members. Group members meet regularly at some common place and share information and plan to improve their skills. Strength of these groups is its members. At present, SHGs play a major role in poverty alleviation in India. In India, as on 2015, the total number of SHGs directly linked to bank stood at 69.53 lakh In the United States Self-Help Groups participation amounted to 10 million in 1996 and recently it is noted that more and more Americans are joining to make SHGs to change their ‘socio economic’ condition. In some countries, Self-Help Groups exist for every medical requirement listed by World Health Organization The present paper tries to explore the impact of SHGs in women empowerment. Two indicators of women empowerment e.g. Decision making and Freedom of  movement have been taken for analysis. Primary data have been collected, coded and analyzed with the help of SPSS.

KEYWORDS: Self Help Group, Women Empowerment, Poverty Alleviation, Decision Making.