The Indian Rubber Plantation Sector is dominated by smallholdings which account for almost 87;of the production and area. The pre-ponderence of smallholdings make the sector vulnerable to violent fluctuations in price, exploitation by middlemen etc. To overcome these difficulties and strengthen the sector, a strong extension support is required. The extension support now available is inadequate to reach out to a million small growers. Therefore, a group management system has been promoted by the Board by encouraging formation of voluntary organisation in line with the Self Help Groups namely the Rubber Producers Societies (RPSs). About 2000 such RPS;s have been formed in India since 1985. An assessment of the performance of these societies has been made since there is wide variation in the level of performance of these RPSs. The study revealed that there has been considerable impact of the RPSs on the production and productivity of rubber and the quality of life in general of the rubber small growers. In the service area of the good RPSs the members derived more benefits as evidenced by the data generated in the study and discussed in the paper. RPS also helped the growers to have better access to technical information and could maintain better liaison with the Rubber Board. The paper discusses factor analysis of the 3 types of RPSs relating to the Board of Directors, members and other stakeholders in a bid to quantify the impact of each of these on the performance of RPS. The study also revealed that the performace of the Board of Directors has a great bearing on functioning of the RPSs. As the Rubber Board of India is proposing to decentralise extension functions and involve voluntary associations of the growers in the development programmes, the study is very relevant as this would help in adopting strategies to strengthen the institutional linkage at the grass root level to enpower and modernise the smallholding sector.