A Study on Socio-Economic Upliftment of Women JEEViKA Beneficiaries and to Analyse the Constraints Faced by Them in Begusarai District of Bihar

Abstract

Majority of the population in Bihar are residing in rural areas and have low source of income which leads to poverty. Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project (BRLP) or JEEViKA project, 2006 is a poverty alleviation project supported by World Bank, which aims to enhance the socio-economic status of rural women. JEEViKA project brought a whole new platform for women empowerment. The present study aims to analyse the significant increase in the level of women’s empowerment through JEEViKA project and also to find out the major constraints faced by women beneficiaries. The study was conducted in the Begusarai district of Bihar which was selected purposively as JEEViKA livelihood training programme is currently running in the district. Teghra block was selected by purposive sampling for the study as the block has the largest number of trained beneficiaries. Total six villages were selected for the study by purposively considering the fact that these villages have a greater number of JEEViKA beneficiaries A total number of 120 respondents were taken for the study out of which sixty benrficiaries and sixty non-beneficiaries were there. The data were collected by personnel interview method by using pre structured interview schedule and later appropriate statistical analysis was done to find out the meaningful results. The present study revealed that the there is considerable increase in the socio-economic empowerment of women JEEViKA beneficiaries after going through livelihood trainings. The study further found the major constraints faced by the beneficiaries in various income generating activities such as lack of proper marketing, lower price etc. It is recommended that to enhance the socio-economic condition of rural women government should organize more such income generating livelihood training under JEEViKA project.