Urban Poverty and Microfinance: Dynamics and Discourses

The problem of urban poverty has become major social problem all over the globe including India in the present era of globalization, resulting in unequal economic growth. In India microfinance through self help groups proving good in alleviating poverty by providing easy and affordable credit facilities to the poor and become an effective strategy of financial inclusion in rural India. However, while rural areas account for up to 95% of current microfinance outreach in India and outreach of microfinance activities in urban India is much less compared to rural areas. Thus, it is argued that providing urban micro financial services can be a tremendous opportunity, given the gravity of the prevailing situation, existing demand and expanding market.