Economic empowerment of women through Self Help Groups (SHGs) in India Today’s society is run by the yardstick of economy. At such a time, depriving women of the financial awareness and the working of economy leads to disparity in society. To address this issue, the government of India has focused on economic empowerment of women through SHGs in the budget 2023-24. SHGs are based on the principle of solidarity and microfinance. By definition, it is a socially and economically homogeneous group of up to 20 persons, formed with the collective purpose of savings and credit, with no insistence on collateral for loans and end usage of credit. They practice the Panchsutra of regular meetings, regular savings, regular inter-loaning, timely repayment and book keeping to avail loans from the banks. As per the economic survey of India 2022-23, India has 1.2 crore SHGs, 88% being all-women SHGs. Examples of SHGs include Looms of Ladakh, Kudumbashree in Kerala. SHG-Bank Linked Project (SHG-BLP) is the world’s largest microfinance project, launched in 1992. SHG-BLP covers 14 crore families through 1.2 crore SHGs, with savings deposit of more than 47,000 crore and collateral free loan outstanding of about 1.5 lakh crore as on 31st December, 2022. Central and State governments and non-governmental organisations promote SHG-BLP to support small and marginalised sections of society. Data suggests credit-linked SHGs have grown at a CAGR of more than 10% during the last 10 years (FY13-FY22), while credit disbursements to SHGs have grown at more than 5% during the same period. SHGs bank repayment is more than 96% indicating their credit discipline and reliability. To conclude, it is essential to mention that SHGs have helped in a significant way to mitigate the problems caused during Covid-19, thus underlining the role of women empowerment through SHGs especially in rural development.