Over the years there have been several innovative measures for financial inclusion undertaken by the government to serve the financially excluded sections of the population. The most notable one of these, is the credit oriented Self-Help Group (SHG) scheme. The present study examines the banks’ lending and savings mobilization activities under SHG-BLP, and the level of financial inclusion achieved through SHG-BLP in 20 major participating states for the period 2007-08 to 2017-18. Although SHG-BLP are well dispersed across the states, there exists a large variation amongst the states in the usage of formal banking services including savings and credit facilities. Results show that public sector banks and Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) are more intensively involved in the SHG-BLP initiatives. Karnataka, West Bengal, Kerala, Chhattisgarh and Bihar rank high in the financial inclusion index of all states constructed using SHG-BLP related evaluation. Further, our econometric estimates find that across the four different bank based financing schemes, there exists a significant and positive association of both the public sector banks and RRBs providing financial services to SHG-BLP across the states. Applying fixed effects panel regression framework we find that both public sector banks and RRBs are more intensively involved in financial inclusion activities especially for sections below the poverty line. These activities are mainly in terms of more saving accounts and increased number of disbursed loans. However, in recent years we also find that private sector banks also have a sizeable number of initiatives for financial inclusion activities among the poor.