5 Women Entrepreneurship Development

K. Vasantha

epgp books

 

 

 

 

Introduction:

 

In India, women constitute half of the world population. But their representation in gainful employment is very low. At present, there is a great awakening among women. Educating women is necessary in strengthening their personality.

 

It is rightly said, “To awaken people, it is the women who must be awakened. Once she is on the move, the family moves, the village moves and the nation moves”. This is the time that countries should create a suitable support system for encouraging more entrepreneurship amongst women.

 

Objectives:

 

At the end of this chapter, you will be clear about

 

The concept and different types of women entrepreneurs

 

Obstacles being faced by middle class women entrepreneurs in India Entrepreneurial growth after independence

 

Recommendations and suggestions for the development of women entrepreneurship

 

Definition of woman entrepreneur

 

Woman entrepreneur is a person who would like to face risks because of adventures spirit she possesses. As per the notes of government of India

 

“An enterprise owned and controlled by a women having a minimum financial interest of 51 % of capital and giving at least 51 % of the employment generated by the enterprise to women. The different types of women entrepreneurs in India.

 

In India there are 5 types of women entrepreneurs They are

 

1.   Affluent entrepreneurs.

2.   Pull Factors

3.   Push Factors

4.   Self Employed Entrepreneurs and

5.   Rural Entrepreneurs

 

Affluent entrepreneurs

 

Affluent entrepreneurs are those women, hailing from rich business families and select their trade in film distribution, beauty parlour, interior decoration, etc, and carry out their work with the help of their family members.

 

Pull Factors

 

How many of you are aware about this type of entrepreneur?

 

This type of entrepreneurs are educated women in cities take up entrepreneurship as a challenge to do something new and to be economically independent. They usually take low risk enterprises like establishing schools, catering centres, restaurants, grocery shops, etc,.

 

Push Factors

 

These entrepreneurs are those who accepts entrepreneurial activities to overcome family difficulties. The family situation forces them to start a new venture or to develop the existing family business.

 

Self Employed

 

We know that women entrepreneurs are mostly undertake self employment ventures. This type of women are from very poor family and start mini enterprise like bamboo making, broom making, candle making, tailoring firm or providing tea and coffee to schools and offices are called self employed entrepreneurs.

 

Finally Rural Entrepreneurs

 

This type of entrepreneurs are hailing from rural areas and select less risk trade like preparation of fruit juices, pickle making, pappad making, etc.

 

Though women have lots of business skills in them, there is no body to encourage and motivate them in entrepreneurship. As a result they have to face many problems even before starting their enterprise and also while doing their business.

 

OBSTACLES BEING FACED BY WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS IN INDIA The major problems faced by women entrepreneurs are

 

Lack of Finance and Problem of Liquidity

 

The main problem faced by the women and small entrepreneurs are in-adequate finance and working capital. The family members do not like to take risk in spending money in ventures run by women. Moreover banks also have negative attitude on women thinking that they may not able to repay the amount. Hence the female entrepreneurs trust their personal savings and loans from their friends.

 

Inadequacy of Raw Materials

 

Due to scarcity of raw materials and other necessary equipments women entrepreneurs finds difficult to run a business.

 

Family Responsibilities

 

As far as women are concerned, managing family is more complicated than running a business. Hence the women entrepreneurs cannot put their total involvement in the venture. Occupational backgrounds of the family members and literacy level of their husbands has a direct impact on the success of women entrepreneurship.

 

Low Literacy Level

 

In India more than 60% of women are illiterate. The family think that spending money for women education is a liability. Lack of education and experience leads further problem in starting a business.

 

Low Confidence to Face Risks

 

Usually women lead a protected life by their family members. Since she is not economically independent, she may not have confidence to face the risks. This leads to failure in her venture.

 

Lack of Training

 

Without proper skill training in Income Generating Activities or other business related activities, it is very difficult for women to start a business.

 

Lack of Information regarding Credit Facilities

 

Women Entrepreneurs are not aware of the information about the availability of credit facilities, subsides and concessions available for women to start a business. Students,

 

If the women entrepreneurs over come all these problems, it is sure that they all will shine as successful entrepreneurs.

 

We have some suggestive measures for the women entrepreneurs in order to face challenges in their respective trade.

 

  • Better educational facilities should be provided to improve their overall personality standards.
  • Creating awareness about various income generating activities suitable for women.
  • Skill Training to be imparted for women to understand the production and marketing management.
  • Women Entrepreneurship Development training should be organised in order to provide opportunities for women to develop their personality.
  • Organise training programmes to develop competencies in production, marketing, leadership, business plan preparation, etc.
  • Encouraging more aspiring women entrepreneurs.

 

Above all, women empowerment training is the most significant component of the programme for Entrepreneurship Development among women. Do you know why ?

 

It shows her individual potential, makes to understand her skills, enables her to realize the obstacles and overcome them to reach her goal.

 

Students, if you all want to become an entrepreneur, don’t think that you can’t compete with male entrepreneurs.

 

This is wrong concept. If you have self confidence and will power, definitely you can excel male entrepreneurs.

 

Now we will see the Growth of women Entrepreneurship in India after Independence. Women has been receiving the attention of the Government for their development. Since the First Five Year Plan the Planning commission identified certain areas and pay special attention to women’s development as a) Education b) Social Welfare and c) Health. The First Five Year Plan (1951-1956) emphasized that in order to fulfill women’s dual role in the family and in the community, adequate service to be provided for their welfare. Organized social service departments were needed to initiate comprehensive programme of women and children.

 

The Second Five Year Plan (1956-1961) emphasized the need for special attention to be given to rectify the problems of rural workers as they were less organized and suffered from certain social prejudices and physical disabilities. The plan emphasized that women should be safeguarded against hazardous and injurious nature of work and they should receive maternity benefit, and also the need for launching measures to improve maternal and child health services, supplementary feeding for children and expectant mothers.

 

The main thrust of the Third Five Year Plan (1961-1965) was on the expansion of girls’ education. Emphasis was given for expanding rural welfare services and condensed courses of education for adult women. The health programmes for women were focused towards provision of services for maternal and child welfare, health education, nutrition and family planning.

 

The approach in the Fourth Five Year Plan (1969-1974) continued to lay emphasis on women’s education. The various efforts of government were concentrated towards provision of institutional services for destitute women; high priority was assigned to immunization of pre-school children and supplementation of diet for children, expectant and nursing mothers.

 

The Fifth Five Year Plan (1974-1979) gave priority to training women from low income families, needy women and dependent children and working women. A programme for functional literacy to endow women with necessary knowledge and skills to perform the functions of the house wife (Including child care, nutrition, health care) was launched for the age group of 15 – 45 in addition to production cum training units, managerial and sales training were planned to be introduced to promote the marketability of foods produced in different units by women.

 

The shift in the approach from “Welfare” to “development” took place in the Sixth Five Year Plan (1980 -1985). The plan adopted a multi disciplinary approach with a special thrust on the core sectors of health, education and employment.

 

In the Seventh Five Year Plan (1985 – 1990) the developmental programme continued with the major objective of raising the economic and social status and bring them into the main stream of development. A very important and crucial step in this direction was to identify and promote the “Beneficiary oriented schemes (BOS)” in various development sectors that extended direct benefits to women.

 

The Eighth Five Year Plan (1992 – 1997) with human development as its focus promised to ensure that the benefits of development from different sectors do not by-pass women, implement special programmes to complement the general development programmes and to monitor the flow of benefits to women from other development sectors and enable women to function as equal partners in development process.

 

The Ninth Five Year Plan (1997 – 2002) adopted the strategy of women’s component plan, under which not less than 30 percent of funds / benefits are earmarked, in all the women related sectors for women specific programmes. A review of the women’s component plan during the Ninth Plan (1997 – 2002) has confirmed that nearly 42.9 per cent of GrossBudgetary Support (GBS) in 15 central ministries / Departments Aggregating a total amount of Rs. 51,943 crores has been spent on women. In the departments such on Family welfare, Health, Education, Women and child and Indian system of medicines and Homeopathy as high as 50 per cent to 80 per cent of the plan expenditure was incurred on women.

 

The Tenth Five Year Plan (2002 – 2007) has undertaken measures to strengthen women’s component in plan programmes. In order to address the developmental issues relating to women, a task force on women and children was constituted by the Government in August 2000.

 

The Government of India has implemented various self employment and wage employment programmes for the development of women and children and are discussed below:

 

Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP)

 

The Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) was started in 1980 -1981 in all blocks of the country and continued as a major self-employment scheme till March 31, 1999. IRDP has several allied programmes aimed at the self-employment of the rural poor. Under this programme poor borrowers are encouraged to organize themselves into groups, are or give awareness training on importance of regular savings and credit discipline, and are instilled with a sense of self-confidence.

 

Training of Rural Youth For Self Employment (TRYSEM)

 

One of IRDP’s facilitating component is Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM) introduced in 1979 was aimed at providing basic technical and entrepreneurial skills to the rural poor in the age group of 18 – 35 years to take up income-generating activities.

 

Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA)

 

DWCRA was directed at improving the living conditions of women, and thereby of children by offering opportunities for self-employment and access to basic social services. It sought to encourage collective work in the form of group activities that were known to better work, and were more sustainable than the individual effort.

 

Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY)

 

SGSY was launched in April, 1999 and it is only self-employment programme currently being implemented. It aims at promoting micro enterprise and to bring the assisted poor families (Swarozgaris) above the poverty line by organizing them into self Help Groups (SHGs) through the process of social mobilization, training and capacity building and provision of income generating assets through a mix of bank credit and government subsidy.

 

Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY)

 

This programme was announced on 28th April 1989. The JRY is specially targetted to help people below the poverty line. Preference is to be given to SC/ST population and freed bonded labourers. At least 30 percent of the employment is to be provided to women under the JRY.

 

Works undertaken under JRY included: social poverty, soil and water, conservation work, minor irrigation work, construction of village tanks, construction of community sanitary latrines; construction of houses for SC/ST population; construction of community centres and construction of school buildings, etc.

 

National Rural Employment programme (NREP)

 

The National Rural Employment Programme was restricted and was introduced, in October 1980. The NREP aimed to create community assets for strengthening rural infrastructure, which include drinking water wells, community irrigation wells, village tanks, minor irrigation works, rural roads schools and balwadi buildings.

 

EMPLOYMENT ASSURANCE SCHEME (EAS)

 

Launched on 2nd  October in 1993, The Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) was initially in operation in 1772 backward blocks. The blocks were identified in drought prone areas, deserts, tribal areas and hill region areas where the Revamped Public Distribution System (RPDS) was in operation.

 

SAMPOORNA GRAMEEN ROZGAR YOJANA (SRGY)

 

The Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (SRGY) was launched in September 2001.

 

The schemes of Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana (JGSY) and Employment Assurance Scheme (EAS) have been fully integrated with SRGY. The objective of the scheme is to provide additional wage employment along with food security creation of durable community, social and economic assets and infrastructure development in the rural areas. The scheme envisages generation of 100 crore mandays of employment in a year

 

Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (PMGY)

 

PMGY was launched in 2000 – 2001 in all the states and the union territories in order to achieve the objective of sustainable human development at the village level. The PMGY envisages allocation of additional assistance to the state and union territories for selected basic minimum services in order to focus on certain priority areas of the government. PMGY initially had five components viz., primary health, primary education, rural shelter, rural drinking water and nutrition. Rural electrification has been added as an additional component 2001 – 2002.

 

Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY)

 

The focus of the programme is on providing road connectivity to unconnected habitation of stipulated population size, connectivity is being provided to all panchayat headquarters and places of tourist interest under the PMGSY irrespective of the population size.

 

ANTYODAYA ANNA YOJANA

 

The scheme was launched by the Prime Minister on 25th December, 2001. Under the scheme 1 crore poorest families out of the BPL families covered under the Targetted Public Distribution System are identified. 25 kgs of food grains were made available to each eligible family at a highly subsidized rate of Rs. 2 per kg for wheat and Rs. 3 per kg for rice.

 

ANNAPURNA

 

This scheme was launched on April 1, 2000 as a 100 per cent centrally sponsored scheme. It aims at providing food security to meet the requirement of those senior citizens who though eligible for pension under the National Old Age Pension Scheme, are not getting the same.

 

Apart from all these government programmes, there are some training institutions involved in the development of women entrepreneurship at district, state and national level.

  • District level training institutions
  • District Industries Centre (DIC)
  • District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) State level institutions
  • Industrial and Technical Consultancy Organization of Tamil Nadu (ITCOT). State Small Industries Corporation (SSIC)
  • Micro Small Medium Enterprise (MSME)
  • Small Industries Development Corporation (SIDCO)
  • Small Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT)
  • Entrepreneurial Guidance Bureau (EGB)
  • National Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs (NAYE)
  • National Research Development Corporation of India (NRDCI) Centre for Entrepreneurial Development (CED)
  • Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Small Scale Industries (AWESSI) Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII)
  • Technical Consultancy Organizations (TCO
  • National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development (NIESBUD) Small Industries Development Organizations (SIDO)
  • Indian Investment Centre (IIC)
  • National Productivity Council (NPC)
  • Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC)

There are some Recommendations and Suggestions for the development of women entrepreneurs More number of aspiring women entrepreneurship should be encouraged to participate in Government trade fairs, exhibitions and conferences.

 

The Establishment of Entrepreneurship Development cell should be increased in order to help women entrepreneurs for removing the constraints simplifying the flow of information and creating access and credit, skill development and support services.

 

Free training facilities should be given to all women entrepreneurs. A subsidy should be given in the products manufactured by women entrepreneurs.Women entrepreneurs should be encouraged to set up cooperatives and to mobilise resources for input and sale of products at nominal prices.

 

Programmes could be organised for the women students in higher education to provide necessary information about the schemes and opportunities available to them and thereby equip them to become future entrepreneurs.

 

Conclusion:

 

Women entrepreneurship in India still has a long way to go. As women form a considerable segment of the Indian population, their strength and energies can be utilized in the interest of the nation’s economy.

 

More women should be encouraged to take up entrepreneurship, through special concessions and financial support.

 

A proper psychological climate should be created for women to enter the business world in a large measure, by widening their awareness and providing the necessary encouragement. It is high time that women energies are tapped and used for the economic development of the nation as a whole.

 

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

 

“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake.”

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References

  • Dhruv Dev Sharma and Suresh Kumar Dhameja, Women Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Management, New Delhi, 2010
  • Kuratko,F., Richard,M., Entrepreneurship in the New Millennium, New Delhi, 2009
  • Maria Johns, Jeyabalan.R. , Krishnamurthy.S (2004), Rural Women Entrepreneurship, New Delhi.
  • Dhameja,S.K., Women Entrepreneurs – Opportunities, Performance, Problems, New Delhi, 2004