Synopsis Rural development is the main pillar of India's development as more than 70 percent people live in rural areas. But the main problem in rural areas is persistent poverty. Although Government of India launched time to time poverty alleviation programmes like IRDP, TRYSEM, DWCRA etc. but still 27 percent of rural population live in poverty. The programmes like IRDP, DWCRA etc. could not make many dents to eradicate poverty so from 1999 new poverty alleviation self employment programme has been initiated. It is popularly known as SGSY (Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojna). SGSY is a holistic programme for promoting self employment in rural areas. The basic approach is to form Self-Help Group (SHG) for carrying out economic activities. In this volume cases of Self Help Group across the country have been analyzed. The groups have been studied in the field itself. So the volume contains both primary and secondary information. This will give an idea about the implementation of SGSY also. For the benefit of readers latest guidelines on SGSY have been incorporated in this volume. This book will be useful to the researchers, academicians and others. It will be helpful to NGOs, Government officials and Panchayat Raj functionaries to get an idea about functioning of SHGs.