Contribution of Women Empowerment towards SME’s Development in India

This research explores the contribution of women empowerment towards SME’s development in India. It aims to understand the role of women in small-scale industries, analyze the SME industry environment for women, and identify challenges and best practices for female-owned SME's. The research focuses on the importance of women entrepreneurs in the growth and development of India.

WOMEN EMPOWERMENT TOWARDS
SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISE’S
DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA: THE
CONTRIBUTION OF WOMEN IN
DEVELOPMENT OF INDIA'S ECONOMY
WITHIN SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE
INDUSTRIES

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Research Title..............................................................................................................................1
Research Aim...............................................................................................................................1
Research Objectives.....................................................................................................................1
Research Questions......................................................................................................................1
Research Background..................................................................................................................1
Rationale of the Research............................................................................................................3
Significance of the Research.....................................................................................................5
Research Scope............................................................................................................................6
LITERATURE REVIEW..............................................................................................................10
Theme 1: Understanding about women empowerment.......................................................10
Theme 2: Role of small-scale industries in women empowerment in India.......................20
Theme 3: SMEs industry environment in India in context of women................................24
Theme 4: The challenges faced by women and examine best practices for female owned
SME's........................................................................................................................................33
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................54

INTRODUCTION
Research Title
Title of this research project is: Contribution of women empowerment towards SME’s
development in India.
Research Aim
Main aim of this research is “To explore the contribution of women empowerment
towards SME’s development in India.
Research Objectives
This research is split into two variables which is dependent and independent (Bos and
Millone, 2015). SEMs development in India is dependent variable which is depend on
contribution of women entrepreneur. These are some essential and useful objectives related with
the research aim are determined as under:
 To extend understanding about Women empowerment.
 To explore Role of women in Small-Scale Industries in Andhra Pradesh
 To analyse the favourability of SME industry environment to Women.
 To identify the challenges faced by women and examine best practices for female owned
SME's
Research Questions
Research question is mainly based on research objectives. These are the research
questions:
 What are the basic phenomena about Women empowerment?
 Does the SME environment favour women?
 Are there challenges limiting women in contributing to SME?
 What the knowledge about the best practices for female owned SME’s?
Research Background
Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) plays a vital role in economic development of a
country (Calman, 2019). Their role in terms of production, generation and contribution of
employment not only helps in improving the economic condition of a country but also helps in
reducing unemployment within a country. For Indian economy also SME are equally important.
It has been observed that nowadays contribution of women is also increasing i.e. today a greater
number of women are starting to work or start their own business. In each sector a greater
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number of women are engaging themselves in performing different kinds of jobs at different
levels. From top to bottom i.e. at each level women are participating in equal number as
compared to men. Other than working as an employee, women are also giving a tough
competition to male entrepreneurs. Even in India number of women entrepreneurs are increasing.
If only SME’s are focused then it can be said that SME has a greater number of Women
entrepreneurs as compared to male entrepreneurs (Ramadani, Gerguri-Rashiti and Fayolle, 2015)
. Contribution of Women entrepreneurs is playing a vital role in development of countries like
India. There is another side of this fact which focuses on all kinds of issues or problems that are
faced by Women in starting their own business-like financial problems, human resource problem
etc. All these issues are impacting growth of women entrepreneurs which is causing a significant
decrease in participation of women entrepreneurs in SME. It is very crucial for both the
developed and developing countries whether they are small as well as medium they always
represent the economic development model that la emphasis on the high contribution regarding
domestic production, employment generation , effective contribution regarding the foreign
exchanges earning to the country regrading low import operations called imperative operations
(Garikipati and et.al., 2017). SMEs sector also emerged as a vibrant as well as dynamic sector
regarding economy. The Indian economy is more expected to grow 9 percent per annum until
2020 and also becomes the largest within the world. It can be ahead to the United states by 2051
as well as third largest after the United States and China by 2032. In order to understand the
influence the SMEs within Indian economy is that they must study the trend as well as pattern
that can be prevalent within the previous year. These Medium and Small enterprises consider as
the backbone in general and secondary sector of an economy. For developing countries such as
India, they are known as panacea regarding various economic woes such poverty, inequalities,
poverty, regional barriers.
These MSMEs played a great role as well as assuring the socialist goals such as women
empowerment balance regional development and also envisaged through planners immediately
after the independence. It found to be more efficient to provide the women employment
opportunities relatively at lower cost (Ramadani, Gerguri-Rashiti and Fayolle, 2015). The
women working here are relatively. Indian economy is growing rapidly at high pace. It is
because of rise in number of SME’s that are highly contributing in GDP of nation. In present
times, a large number of SME’s has emerged in India. They belong to different sectors and are
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operating successfully (Garikipati and et.al., 2017). Moreover, women are also engaged in
managing business. They are working at high position like managers, CEO, etc. Moreover,
government has taken various initiatives as well to empower women in managing SME’s. it has
enabled in educating women and motivating them to work in SME’s. through SME’s women are
able to gain skills and knowledge. They are now able to manage business effectively and become
independent. SMEs as better pathway for women empowerment is that these industries requires
small amount of investment. Thus women with good business skills can also make investment
can generate profitability making them financially self regulating (Ramadani, Gerguri-Rashiti
and Fayolle, 2015) . The small scale industries are also crucial as it can improve growth as well
increase productivity.
Rationale of the Research
Present research is based upon importance of women entrepreneur in growth and
development of India (Calvi, Lewbel and Tommasi, 2017). The main reason behind choosing
this as a research topic is that today number of women entrepreneurs are increasing in business
world which is playing a vital role in development of countries like India. This research is
important to understand the way in which role of women can be increased in development of a
country and what role does SME plays in increasing women empowerment (Qureshi, Khan and
Uprit, 2016). In order to increase women empowerment in business world small and medium
enterprise plays a vital role. This is one of the reasons why this topic has been chosen as this
research will help in highlighting the role of women entrepreneurs in small medium enterprise in
development of a country like India (Afshar, 2016). In addition to this, the academic interest of
the researcher is another reason for choosing this topic.
Women play a vital role in the running and functioning of the nation by making their
contribution in various fields such as politics where they contribute their efforts at times being
President, Prime Minister of India, Leader of Opposition and Speaker of Lok Sabha. States in
India such as Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal pradesh, Uttrakhand, Andra Pradesh, Himachal
Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerla, Orissa, Maharashtra, Tripura and Rajasthan
have initiated implementation of 50% reservation of women in PRIs. Panchayats hold enormous
number of members. Kodaserry Panchayat in Kerala have 100% elected its members as women
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are currently there as 2 chief ministers of India are female along with 12 out of 29 states and
union territory of Delhi have at least one female Chief Minister.
Recruitment of women for non-medical post for Indian Army Forces began positioning in
1992. From 2013 Border Security Forces (BSF) began recruitment of women where in year 2017
Tanushree Pareek is the first female combat officer commissioned by BSF gave women the
freedom to serve for the nation and express their patriotism in efficient and effective ways.
Where government embedded several law's for their protection and safety such as
Guardians & Wards Act, 1890, Indian Panel Code, 1860, Christian Marriage Act, 1872, Indian
Evidence Act, 1872, Married Women's Property Act, 1874, Workmen's compensation Act, 1923,
Indian Succession Act, 1925, Immoral Traffic Act, 1956, Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961,
Commission of Sati Act, 1987, Cinematography Act, 1952, Births, Deaths & Marriage
Registration Act, 1886, Minimum Wages Act, 1948, Prevention of children from sexual offences
Act, 2012, Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929, Muslim Personal Law Application, 1937,
Indecent Representation of Women Act, 1986, Special marriage Act, 1954, Hindu marriage Act,
1955, Hindu Succession Act, 1956, Foreign marriage Act, 1969, Family Courts Acts, 1954,
maternity Benefit Act, 1961, Hindu Adoption & Maintenance Act, 1956, Code of Criminal
Procedure Act, 1973, Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, National Commission for
Women Act, 1990, Pre-conception and pre-natal diagnostic techniques, protection of women
from domestic violence act, 2005, sexual harassment of women at workplace act, 2013, Indian
divorce Act, 1969, Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, Hindu Widows Remarriage Act, 1856 and
Muslim women act, 1986.
India in today's time is facing low life expectancy of their women compared to that of
other countries in the world which is gradually improving but is a major concern for the nation.
Women and girls from rural culture are facing nutritional deficiencies and are mostly
malnourished where poor nutrition practices during pregnancy which lead to complications
during birth where 42% of the delivery process happen under supervision of expert whereas
other 58% occur with the support of elder women in the house along with many other un
professional members of the family who lack knowledge about pregnancy.
Indian Air Force also recruits women for combat and support roles. During Kargil war
Gunjan Saxena was the first supporting sorties whereas Deepika Mishra in 2006 was first IAF
woman pilot received training for Sarang display team. Whereas Nivedita Chodhary 2012 was
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first women from Indian Air Force to summit Mount Everest. Whereas further the year 2015
added women as fighter pilots, adding their roles of helicopter pilots for Indian Air Force. The
year 2015 added 1500 women that include 94 pilots along with 14 navigators where wing
commander Shaliza Dhami was the first female officer having permanent commission with
Indian Air Force where Minty Agarwal squadron leader was the first women receiving Yudh
Seva Medal. Further Dr. Punita Arora in 1968 became second Indian women promotes as three
star ranker after Lt. General Punita Arora. Dr. Seema Rao Indian Wonder Women first Indian
woman commander trainer who have trained 15000 special forces in India served for 20 years
consequently without compensation as close quarter battle. Further women are serving in central
reserve police force, central industrial security force, border security force, sashastra seema bal,
Indo Tibetian border force. Further they are also accountable to serve in national security guard,
special protection group, railway protection force, national disaster response force. Women in
Indian Cost Guard, Assam Rifles and Special Frontier Force where Indian Coast Guard on
January 2017 deployed four female officers for combat roles namely commandants Anuradha
Shukla, Sneha Kathyat, Shirin Chandran and Vasunshara Chouskey in Indian maritime bordering
Bangladessh and Pakistan.
Significance of the Research
Significance is crucial within a study as it help in presenting the reason about why
conduction of a particular resaerch is important and how its outcome would be helpful. It also
helps in understanding who will be the users of the research who can benefit for this particular
research (Garikipati and et.al., 2017). This research contributes in understanding role of women
empowerment in SME’s in development of a country like India. This research also benefits the
researcher in understanding contribution of Women in development of a country, issues or
barriers that are faced by women entrepreneurs, Role of Small-Scale Industries in Women
empowerment in India, SMEs industry environment in India in respect of Women, best practices
for female owned SME’s in India (Ramadani, Gerguri-Rashiti and Fayolle, 2015) . With the help
of this research study women entrepreneurs can understand the way in which they can overcome
their issues or problem that are faced by them.
This chapter has identified the ways in which the women have come up with the growth
and development of themselves which has aimed for the development of small enterprise. The
roles and functions has developed the quality and increased the status of the women. This has
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developed the level of equality among the development of women workers which has increased
the significant value of the women workers which has aimed for the development of female
workers. As there is a growth of women in gender equality this has increased a significant value
of the workers (Qureshi, Khan and Uprit, 2016). This research has showed how female workers
have developed in India, many of the women workers are the owners of many small-scale
business. Many of the women workers has grown as an entrepreneur. Which has brought equality
among the workers and provided am equal status to the women. In Indian economy it is
necessary to find out role of women as entrepreneur and in SME’s. This is because in recent
times, women are highly involved in starting their own business and contributing in other
SME’s. Women are competing with men in making a business successful. They are offering new
ideas and strategies. Furthermore, women participation in business has increased. They are
working as managers in various SME’s. Thus, it has transformed the growth of SME’s.
Therefore, it has resulted in empowering women and there is high rise in their participation in
business. Furthermore, study emphasis on why there is rise in women in SME and its growth.
India is nation where there is gender inequality. Also, most of SME are managed by men. This
study will throw light on how women are playing vital role as entrepreneur. Also, it will reflect
how in social, economic, etc. way women are contributing in SME’s. beside this, research will
provide stats and raw data on women role in making SME’s successful and expanding in other
markets (Buckley and Perlman, 2018). Alongside it, how small business enterprises growth and
development is done through effective strategies and goals.
Research Scope
The data will be collected in the form of questionnaire through a survey which helps the
researcher to collect required data with survey questions so that analysis of the data can be done
in a convenient manner (Buckley and Perlman, 2018). Inductive approach will be used by
research, this will help in reaching the conclusion by collating more appropriate information
about the research topic. This research paper has been done with minimum limitations. Despite
of these limitations this research is appropriate enough to be used in future in understanding
women role in developing countries. In future this research can be a reference document by
women entrepreneurs in order to improve their participation in development of their country.
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It is very essential for a researcher to remain more careful about what is required to be
performed i.e. general purpose of the study, what population sample is to be selected about the
study. The topics as well as theories that researcher does and also geographical location covered
within the study. Research can be conducted to know as well as learn new technologies,
innovation,new developments such as method to know the women role in various decision-
making process as women are strongest in decision-making . Research done to get the
complexity,characteristics,social,feasibility as well as viability. SMEs are important for
economic and social reasons as they give employments to a large number of Indian citizens.
SME are more important to developing countries like India where the gap between rich and poor
is large (Qureshi, Khan and Uprit, 2016).. SME contribute to Indian economy not only in
development but also with the job creations in the country with comparatively lower cost of
capital than huge industries and corporates. The main factors which are affected by SME are
poverty, inequality and unemployment. SME have helped India during the time of the financial
crisis with providing employment opportunities to a large individuals. SME is very much known
for the employment opportunities it provides to the local communities which mainly include
unskilled and skilled workers who do not get employment in large organisations. It also brings
growth and innovation into the business thereby nurturing the local communities. One of the
most important contribution of SMEs was the promotion of balanced economic development
(Buckley and Perlman, 2018). These small enterprises provide a cushion for the socialistic goals
of income equality and regional development. When these SMEs are set up in the local areas of a
region/state, they are also industrializing the rural and backward areas and helping them moving
and uplifting them toward a better condition and improving the standard of living of rural area
people. SME also provide backup to the bigger organisations by doing their outsourced work at
cheaper costs. This help the bigger organisation to invest in developing country like India which
in turn increases the gross domestic product (GDP) of India, which is of the key indicators of
economic development for a country. So SME plays an important role in developing the
economy of the country. SME is considered to be the most dynamic sector for the growth of
Indian economy, as SME deals with a large amount of dynamic products. SME has been running
Indian economy for more than 50 years and now more and more people are setting up their
business in the SME sectors (Qureshi, Khan and Uprit, 2016). In the previous 3 years have
been, Indian economy has been drastically changed with the help of SMEs. Government has
7

introduced policy like make in India, skill India to encourage and support SMEs. Digital India is
also helping the small players get aligned with m-payments and e-commerce. Government
initiative that have majorly affected the SMEs are offering credit for technology upgrades,
helping manufacturing units with national competitiveness program, helping SMEs ton grow
further in foreign markets. SME contribute to around 45% of the India's total GDP. In India
around 46 crores people i.e., almost 35% of the India's total population. So, the importance of
SME's are much more then these number to the well being of India. Role of SMEs in the well-
being of India is not only participating directly or indirectly in the mainstream economy, but also
to act as a panacea for economic woes like poverty, unemployment, income inequality and
regional imbalances (Buckley and Perlman, 2018). So SMEs has been playing an important role
in developing the economic growth of India. This research will help other scholars with the data
which is carried out for the development small-scale enterprise. Various opportunities are created
which has helped women to develop within the organisation. Increasing workforce of female
workers will improve the development of women and create an opportunities for the women
empowerment. This research is carried out to evaluate the development of the women workers in
the national economic growth which aims in the development of the small enterprise. This
reflects the working scenario of the women in the society. This research will improve the
working conditions in which government of India will motivate women workers and increase the
growth of women. This research also elaborates the future of women workers which will help
many small enterprise with the data interpreted in this research, which will help in increasing
liabilities of the women any help to improve the skills and track their development (Ramadani,
Gerguri-Rashiti and Fayolle, 2015) . The small scale industires are crucial for the incresing job
oppoerutnies as well as ecomonic development .It enhaces the growth through enahcing rural and
urban growth.The issues like Slums,povert ,polutions as well as many development acts .If
amount of capital is invested wthim small countries helps to reduce unemployment within india
so that it enahces economic development within india .The industry within a sector that
produces goods within a segment. Woman in small scale industries need a realtively smaller
amount than the needed large-scale industries (Buckley and Perlman, 2018). .Another attraction
calls for a great deal regarding development as well as management. These small scale
industries are crucial relatively low proportion as well as material compared with total amount
regarding capital used. These are the quick investment type that needed investment of capital as
8

well as start of the flow of produced goods. (Qureshi, Khan and Uprit, 2016).Small and medium
size enterprise has a huge impact on the economy of India. These enterprises have been engaging
in creating employment opportunities for people. It has helped them in enhancing their lifestyle
and standard of living. SMEs in India contribute around 17 per cent to the country's GDP. They
also make a significant contribution to India's exports and industrial output at 40 per cent and 45
per cent respectively. It has supported them in enhancing their economic output. It has helped the
company in growing. It has also created opportunities for the people who are under-developed.
Their capacity for innovation and flexibility in a fast changing business environment makes them
crucial for success.
The small and medium size enterprise has also brought up innovation and creativity. This has
helped the people in improving their livi8ng standard. The small size enterprise has the
employees between 10-25 employees. They have turnover of 25 lakhs. The medium size industry
has also the workers between 20-30. They have made invested 50 lakh in the industry. They
make a large amount of profit. It has helped them in growing. It has also enhance the economy in
India. It has supported small and medium size enterprise in achieving their goals and objectives.
They have created employment opportunities up to 42.50 million. This has helped the country
like India in growing. It has also supported them in enhancing the gross domestic income. They
have also increased the national and international income of the country. It has supported them in
growing.
9

LITERATURE REVIEW
Theme 1: Understanding about women empowerment
Background to women empowerment
According to Kapila, Singla and Gupta, (2016) women empowerment is defined as the
process or changes in the ways through which role and functions of women are elaborated and
recreated in specific circumstances in which their role was denied previously. All around the
world the role of women is dedicated mostly to their families and societies only and is not
expected to extend deeply into business or economic. However, for developing strong economy
it is necessary that women must be empowered completely so that they can take part in economic
life as well and contribute their skills, knowledge and efficiencies. Women empowerment is also
helpful in enhancing quality of life for all social members along with sustainability and
development. These practices involve practices for women where they can be home workers,
small producers, informal worker, markets, distributors, contractors, suppliers, designers where
women owned enterprises focus on making improvement towards premium markets, further their
role as a leader in business as well as communities will ensure involvement of women in senior
management will ensure they will develop 8-13 % higher returns when they are associated and
being made part of management, further as practices being women employees generate 15% and
above returns above national industry means along with enhancement of women in enterprise
will justify good image of company highlighting effective working conditions along with making
influences in policy making and markets resulting in increased profits with their efforts in
emerging market conditions.
As per the view of Calvi, Lewbel and Tommasi, (2017) private sectors offers greater
opportunity and contribution in empowerment of women's. This can be accomplished by
applying empowerment principles in market, community, workplace and all other segments of
business. It has been also analysed that for promoting sustainable development women
empowerment is a necessity. This approach is considered to be an essential milestone in
establishing gender equality for the development of humanity for other human practices. In
various cultures, political, social and economic institutions gender bias is quite evident. The
abuse and unacceptable level of discrimination prohibits the development and contribution of
women in decision making. Financial dependency over men is one of the most dominating factor
which encourages discrimination and abusive behaviour towards women affecting their mental
10

conditions along with harming their level of complicities, with the knowledge of rights possessed
by the women they can conserve their working conditions along develop a position in
surrounding that they too are strong enough ensuring protection of theirs and their families rights
from evil elements of the society.
This increase in female labour force not only promote the personal development of the
community but also plays significant role in developing economy. According to Saini, (2017) in
the past few years developing countries are witnessing improved education level and health
outcomes of women. There has been increase in the awareness regarding women's right and
preferences that eliminated the practice of their dignity and respect being put on harm and served
them better and productive life and work opportunities. However, in terms of labour force or
economic opportunity, income and ownership rights, credit access and entrepreneurship rates
women continue to trail men. It is also identified that least or negligible investments in the
development limits of women can slow down the economic progression and poverty reduction
rate.
In the same context Calman, (2019) stated that empowerment of women will allow this
half gender to equally participate in existing market. Empowered women tend to have more
opportunity and authority to access productive resources and time to also take part in economic
decision making. It has been also analysed that productivity and sustainability practices can be
increased to a great extent when women are allowed to contribute in the economy. With the
increasing participation of women in jobs and entrepreneurship attributes such as economic
diversification, income equality and work productivity are also increased.
According to Cunningham and et. al., (2015) lack of education and discriminatory
perspective towards women is primary factor responsible for the limited contribution of women.
Even if women are provided education their role tends to be limited to only non-skill jobs or jobs
which does not require any statistical or decision making skills. Thus, in order to pace up with
the technological advancements and global changes it is mandatory that women must be
provided with effective education framework so they contribute with their equal efforts in such
market conditions and stand in competition with men and develop great endeavours for further
advancements and benefits.
The improved knowledge and education through women empowerment will also provide
an opportunity to women to participate in the labour market. Thus, principles of women
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empowerment are crucial so that women can translate their skills, knowledge and capabilities
into successful labour outcomes. As per the view of Dutta and Bhakta, (2017) women have better
skills in terms of analysis and making sustainable decisions. However unequal opportunities and
unemployment among women creates various downfalls in economy because true potential is not
harnessed to its full extent. Thus, for economic stability as well as to improve social status of
women in society it is essential that women empowerment programs and opportunities must be
encouraged and utilised into practices.
In the similar context Raj and et. al., (2018) elucidated that contrary to the earlier
societies at present women are smarter, educated and socially active. Thus, to cope up with the
development trends it has become mandatory for them to showcase their talent and to grab
development opportunities. Women empowerment can serve as the foundation to complete social
and economic development and can be accomplished by assuring their equal participation in
economic activities along with coping with the advancement for the purpose of their
development and betterment as well. Women with such practices into implementation will lead
to ensure their potions for further development along with activities leading to boosting their
morel for such practices where they ensure their position in the economy and lead healthy and
effective life.
The practices of women empowerment lead to their lives with dignity and freedom along
with adding their self esteem providing them distinct identity where they successfully gained
respect of the society. Further these practices will lead to financial independence for further
spending needs and desires for making accountable contributions for the betterment of the
society for the country to enhance gross development growth and generate fair and equitable
resources for the country. Women in the nation with effective and enormous fund opportunity
will develop their practices will lead to increased respect in society where they ensure their
protected state in economic environment.
Female Entrepreneurs in India
According to information presented by Kumar. S., 2020, the society of India always
remain dominated by males but now within this contemporary time, females are breaking this
trend and getting out the shadows within all of the powerful avatar. Now a days women from
different part of the world are coming with there talent by fading all kind of societal notions
which mainly restricted them for becoming an active part of society. This action has bring up a
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change within wind flow by showing its impact within the corporate world of India. Indian
women has crossed a long journey from being just a home maker to operating a business, leading
new ideas, inventions. There are some of the well known and inspiring women entrepreneur who
has proved their success within corporate world and remark their presence in golden letters.
These women entrepreneur has now become inspiration for many of the women who are still far
away to approach their own career and opportunities. Some of the successful women
entrepreneur of India are, Indu Jain who is a chairperson of Bennet, Coleman (TOI). She was
born in Faizabad, Uttra Pradesh and consider as one of the most cultural and influential women
having multifaceted personality. Currently Indu Jain is a chairperson of Bennett, Coleman & Co.
Ltd. Who own one of the leading news daily “The Times Of India”. Due to her outstanding
performance she was also rewarded with the Padma Bhushan award in year 2016 by the Indian
government for all the contribution she made. Addition to this she was also listed within the
Forbes 2015 having net worth of 3.1 billion USD and ranked as 57th richest person within
country.
Other than this, Indra Nooyi is also one among the most successful women throughout
the world. She is currently operating at the role of Board of director in Amazon and well known
for her role as a chairperson as well as CEO of PepsiCo India Holding Pvt Ltd. Indra Nooyi truly
inspires women throughout world to come up with their passion to avail the career opportunity
and become successful. She is ranked under world's 100 most powerful women which is one of
the great achievement. Despite of this the name Kiran Mazumdar Shaw is an unforgettable name
who take up the pharmaceutical company Biocon limited to new heights. This company was an
industrial enzyme manufacturing company when it is at starting stage but now the by getting
leadership from Kiran now it become a full blown bio pharmaceutical company. This company
mainly focuses toward coming up with the solution for several disease like cancer, diabetes
which plagues India.
On the other hand, as per the detail presented by Nikam. S., 2020, as compare to past
years women of India are now getting more empowered and also working toward exploring and
exploiting the opportunity in order to prove themselves in front of the society to change their
domination nature. There are several women entrepreneurs who achieve success by bring up
their talent, skills ideas etc. and now motivating other women to become more successful by
understanding their potentials. A better example of this is Aditi gupta who took up an action
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toward changing the old, dominating and conservative believes of the society toward women
while their menstruation cycle. There is a thought which is prevailing throughout rural and some
of the urban areas that women at their mensuration cycle must be kept aside from other people
and restricted them to perform their daily work like worship, cooking etc. So to change these
believe among people she took up a action toward it and she created a Hindi comic book along
with her husband which illustrate and educate the young girls about menstruation. After its
success they both established a venture at online platform by the name of Menstrupedia.com. So
This comic book and website work toward spreading awareness among people by providing
guidance about the personal hygiene, health concern as well as ways of getting more active at the
time of this mensuration cycle.
On the other side, Ankita Gaba is also one good example of female entrepreneur who is a
co founder of SocialSamosa.com. She is a strategist of social media, consultant, entrepreneur,
lecturer and co founder of Social Samosa.com. She is awarded for being a part of Global top 100
social media agencies and consultants 2012-13 and also “50 India Women to follow on Twitter”.
She is expertise within different things of social media and support social media agencies to
build up their strong teams and network processes for their venture. The main idea behind this
Social Samosa by Ankita is to present A to Z repository of Indian social media trends, thoughts,
news, idea and dialogues. As the social media platform is growing rapid, it generated a necessity
regarding the knowledge about operating it effectively specially for those who use social media
for operation their business or performing promotional practices. So by determining the
importance of this Ankita started Social Samosa where she represent new ways for using social
media to getting engage with larger number of people at this platform. This website is also being
awarded with “The Blog Of The Year at The WATAward 2013”.
Another example of female entrepreneur in India is Falguni Nayar who is CEO of Nykaa
and is well known personality among women entrepreneur in India. With Nykaa Falguni has
build India's leading beauty retailers which is spread at an immense network which is of around
850+ brands. It is an e-commerce platform which is formed by considering the need and demand
of women regarding getting cosmetic and other beauty essential at a single platform where they
can compare the products and at the same time also check about the reviews of product from
their users. She is great inspiration for the women as she represented that everything is possible
when one come up with great ideas and grow it with efforts. She already holding the partnership
14

with world's top notch personal care corporation along with the P&G, Unilever, L'Oreal, Johnson
& Johnson and now planning to raise around 20 crores of funding from the private investors to
spread its physical stores throughout the country and also planning to expand new technologies.
Barriers to women empowerment within India
According to the information presented by Selvi, V.D., 2018, the women empowerment
is one of the major issue within country like India as there are number of issues that women have
to face within country. These mainly includes discrimination, oppression, violence from the
family member, insult, control or restrictions etc, within the society as well as at work place.
These are some of the factors which create barrier toward the development as well as
empowerment of women in India, as the gender gap is relatively higher within the society which
in turn restrict the access to opportunity to women. This women empowerment is not only
emphases over the area of development in term of rights as well as opportunity but also focuses
toward creating a link of recognition of oppression for gaining the consciousness as well as
confronting the unwanted culture and legal binding which is present at community level or
household. Hence the main focus of women empowerment should be at providing the right to
women for taking up decision and being able to work with equal opportunity. But for women
empowerment it is very essential to firstly remove barrier. The barriers found in empowering
women in India are mentioned below:
Negligence by officials: While working at within the corporate the major issue that
women mainly found is that they do not get much attention and support from their seniors
specially the male candidates. This in turn affect their ability to perform task in effective manner,
as due to lack of support they don’t be able to improve their capability to perform work and at
the same time also find it difficult to grab new opportunity. This remains a major factor within
proper empowerment of the women at workplace.
Problem related with realising the loan: In order to start up their own working in form
of small business, the major issue that a women face is lack of access to financial support. This is
sio because they usually don’t have any collateral support to get their loan sanction by the
authority and in some other cases authorities or other institutions found it risky to grant loan to
women from backward area. This is one of the major barrier to women empowerment as women
find it difficult to get finance which they can use in order to start their business or execute the
basic operations.
15

Lack of adequate training: The training is considered as one of the most important
components within a development program. There are mainly kind of requirement that a training
program help in fulfilling which are very much essential for operating a business or performing a
job role. This includes formation of managerial capability in order to maintain the business
practices, up grading the skills required for performing a particular job role and learn to apply the
technology as now a day’s work is more depend over technology. Hence these are considered as
necessity for performing the task within a job or for managing a business effectively. The women
mainly found issue in getting adequate training in order to smoothly handle the operation as well
as task which they need to perform within group. The appropriate extension of training will
allow the women to gather knowledge such as ways of performing the entrepreneurial activities,
coordination of group for credit holder, promotion, credit disbursement etc.
Lack of proper monitoring: - Success of any kind of self employment activity is highly
based over the proper monitoring as well as guidance get by implementing agencies. Proper
monitoring of activities provide courage as well as support for smooth running of business
activities. But the women found less support from the society, their family as well as from the
community members as they are consider to be less consistent and regular to perform the
operations. This sight of neglect as well as lack pf support is the major barrier in front of the
women to perform well within their operations. Due to this absence of support, women usually
lack in getting opportunity to grow as well as start up their business practices and hence because
of it the women empowerment practices stay limited to some areas usually in urban areas. The
main reason behind it is that women in rural area lives within male dominant society where each
decision in their life are being taken by their male partner and lack of literacy rate is also an
another factor which increases this barrier for ensuring the community member about their future
growth and hence not be able to get access to the opportunity as well as other kind of resources
which are required for monitoring and controlling the business practices effectively.
Lack of marketing: This is another major barrier which restrict the women
empowerment practices within India. Marketing of goods is consider to be a crucial part of
performing business practices as it help not only in making people aware about the product or
services available in marketing and its significance, but also help in ensuring that it provide an
easy access about product to the customers for achieving sustainability and profitability of
business. Within rural area women usually start their business at lower level while managing
16

production at their home such as handicraft, clothing material, pickle, packed food items and
many more. But due to lack of marketing practices these business practices remain limited and
instead of earning profit they get restricted to just covering up their production cost to having a
little benefit to it. Hence, this is also consider to be one of the biggest barrier to the execution of
business operations in effective manner.
From this discussion it can be said that women remains within the disadvantageous side
as due to male dominance factor within the society as well as lack of societal support the barrier
to women empowerment is relatively higher despite if all the support that is exerted by
government. Due to this dominating factor women get less access to the resources as well as
other factors which support in improving their position and be able to employ themselves by
grabbing the opportunity. But as the barriers are high this become very much difficult for them to
get access to several things which are crucial such as financial support in form of loan, guidance,
monitoring, training for updating their knowledge, access to marketing practices etc. which are
very much crucial in monitoring the business practices in effective manner.
On the other side, according to the information presented by Praharaj. M., 2019, the male
literacy within country is around 82.1 per cent while on the other side the female literacy lags at
just at 65.5 per cent. According to 2011 census, the literacy of female within the state of Odisha
which was only 64 per cent compared to about 82 per cent in case of male population which
shows the gender gap of about 18 per cent. The female work participation is consider to be very
much crucial and important indicator of women involvement within the economic activities of
country. The female work participation rate is relatively lower as compare to male for total of the
rural as well as urban population. the workforce participation rate for women within country is
only 21.9 per cent. This is so because of the education backwardness among girls which is turn is
the major consequential cause of gender inequality within India. But the female literacy is
consider to be crucial for the development of society as well as individual and at the same time
this will also support in reducing the gender inequality which is the main cause behind
inappropriate women empowerment. The gender equality as well as women empowerment is the
major role of the government within India. In this regard he National Mission for Empowerment
of Women (NMEW) that was launched by the government of India on the international women
day in year 2010 which aimed at strengthening the overall process which in turn help in
promoting the all round development of the women within country. The state government of
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Odisha implemented all the welfare scheme which was framed by the Indian government in
order to give priority to women according to the constitution of India.
The 74Th constitutional Amendment Act 1992, supported and represent for the first time
one third of women in urban local self government institution. This in turn has drastically
improve the Indian political process with far reaching the consequences for Indian federalism,
gender equality, decentralisation, social justice, democracy as well as people’s participation
within planning for development by promoting a thought that women indispensable part of the
society. However, many of the women have to live within an anxiety of being unsafe at certain
time and at certain places which in turn bring up a huge influence over the ability of women to
get engage within the employment as well as community participation, leisure and social
activities. The community is required to take up the responsibility of it and play a role within
improving the situation of women by designing the safe places for women. Hence, by
empowering the women it become easier for females to challenge the gender discrimination
against several institutions as well as structure of society which restrict them to grow and
develop. This help them in getting self reliance, sense of pride, liberation as well as courage to
fight for the social injustice. The major issues that women mainly faces is lack of access to
decent work and faces the occupational segregation as well as gender wage gaps. The urban
spaces are not always consider to be safe for women which in turn constraining their right to
move freely. Women who are poor and lives in urban slum area finds several issues like lack of
clear water, durable housing, improved sanitation which in turn restrict them to empower
themselves as they get limited to their issues of living.
The gender inequality is the major barrier to the empowerment of women, even in urban
areas too. Women within cities faces a range of barriers and vulnerability in the form of gender
based discrimination such as gender inequality, poverty, violence against women, unequal
opportunity in term of participation within public as well as private decision making along with
barrier to their education, housing, basic services as well a s employment. The creation of safe as
well as inclusive spaces that respond to the need of women as well as men imperative for
increasing the social cohesive as well as sustainability urban development. So, for this the
community must focuses toward promoting each city as most convenient as well as safe place for
women by supporting them in getting full access to participate within the cultural, social,
political and economic life of the city. The current development within the urban infrastructure
18

and environment is required to be redesign for promoting greater gender equality, so that women
empowerment can be promoted.
Need and significance of women empowerment
According to Garikipati and et. al., (2017) women empowerment is necessary to promote
confidence in women so that they can use their abilities and skills in productive direction. The
sharpening, and nurturing of skills of women is possible only when they are provided freedom to
express, education and equal rights and education to receive financial freedom and growth. It has
been stated by Chaturvedi, Singh Rai, (2016) that following are the primary factors which
reflects the necessity and significance of women empowerment.
Reproductive wealth
In majority of societies women are not concerned about their health. According to WHO
In the wake of providing care to families and children health concerns of women are often
ignored by them. This creates a significant gap in the mortality and morbidity of health of men
and women. It is very essential that each individual is given equal opportunities to hold good
wealth. The limited access to finance and lack of confidence and education often makes women
less effective in emphasising on their health. Donta and et. al., (2016) elucidated that when
women will be financially independent and empowered they will be confident enough to bother
about their own priority, fitness and well being.
Stewardship of natural resources
According to Vinayagamoorthy, (2017) during financial crisis women are supposed to
make adjustments in their choices and preferences since they are non-earning members of
family. Thus women's are considered to be efficient enough to adopt sustainability practices in
their work. If women are empowered to utilise their sustainability skills then it can contribute to
considerable benefits to business and economic growth. The lack of authority and freedom to
women is making their valuable sustainability skills to remain unexplored which can otherwise
contribute greatly to operational benefits as well as environment.
Economic empowerment:
At present males are assumed to be the drivers or economy and the contribution of
women is not calculated in terms of credits or finance. Thus, there is high need that women must
be empowered in terms of economy. This approach will allow women to receive suitable credit
19

and benefits for their unrecognised work. The contribution of women in economy is also helpful
in promoting stability in economic growth. The empowerment will provide new opportunities for
business to women so that stronger and consistent economies can be developed.
Education empowerment:
As per the view of Singh, (2017) there are number of economies in which women are not
even empowered to receive education opportunities equal to men's. Some skills and educational
courses are still considered as domain of men. Despite having equal capabilities and skills due to
lack of gender equality women are not able to properly utilise their skills and to receive
necessary recognition and benefits. Women empowerment will assure that all individuals
irrespective of their gender are able to access education services. Education empowerment is not
only necessary from economic perspective but is also helpful for the effective nurturing of
children and families.
Political empowerment:
Politics is considered as one of the male dominant profession. However, the negligible
participation of women in power makes their situation more vulnerable. In the same context
Shetty and Hans, (2015) stated that women empowerment is not possible until and unless
women's are not allowed to enter into politics and do not develop welfare policies for
themselves. The political empowerment of women will also assure that rights and safety of
women are not compromised. The political empowerment is not possible without education and
economic development of women. It is necessary that women's must recognise their rights and
capabilities so that they can also receive equal wealth and recognition of their abilities as enjoyed
by other groups in societies. It will also lower the crime and abusive events against women
which are often neglected and taken for granted due to limited power to women.
Theme 2: Role of small-scale industries in women empowerment in India
According to Calvi, Lewbel and Tommasi, (2017) apart from playing an important role in
strengthening Indian economy small scale industries (SMEs) also establish equity in terms of
social justice and gender. SMEs are crucial in terms of generating employment, skill and
resource mobilisation and energization of rural economy. These industries provides employment
opportunities to both men and women. In most of the Indian societies it is assumed that women
must emphasis on their families and social roles and are not allowed to work outside. The
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perception is predominant in rural areas of India. However with SMEs it is considered that with
small size organisation women will have negligible interaction with outside world and they will
also be able to meet the financial needs. Thus the increasing participation of women in such
small sized industries is also supported by their family members.
In the same context Kaur and Mantok, (2016) stated that in India SMEs provide
employment to both highly skilled as well as less qualified individuals. Thus these industries
allow women's to identify and explore their potential to perform specific job roles without
having any fear to witness massive or large scale audience or communities. In order to build and
develop confidence among female entrepreneurs can be considered as effective medium. As per
the view of Digan and et. al., (2019) these small industries also make women independent in
terms of employment and finance so that they quality of life can be improved. At the same time
women's also become capable to support their families financially and to make some investments
for future. It gives women a sense of financial empowerment because their morale is increased to
perform with more efficiency.
It has been also elucidated by Bade, (2015) that small industries also have adequate
training and support programs so that apart from the professional excellency women can also
emphasis on their personal development needs. It teaches them various qualities and skills such
as time and resource management, confidence, problem solving, creativity and knowledge
development which provides them a psychological strength and ability to take decisions. In a
conclusive statement Akter, Rahman and Radicic, (2019) stated that SMEs in India are not only
providing economic empowerment but also empower women's of India in terms of decision
making, roles and responsibility and emotional preferences. It has been also analysed that in
urban areas condition and development of women is considerable, however there is high need to
empower this half population in rural areas of India.
SMEs are proving to be highly beneficial in terms of empowerment of women. This is
demonstrated by the fact that contrary to the large-scale industries SMEs provides equal
opportunities to both less and highly qualified women. According to Borkar and et. al., (2017)
another reason which makes SMEs as better pathway for women empowerment is that these
industries requires small amount of investment. Thus, women with good business skills can also
make investment can generate profitability making them financially independent. Women
empowerment is also defined as the fair chance and opportunity to women to control and utilise
21

their intellectual knowledge, financial resources and equality to participate in decision making at
various levels such as home, community, national and social level (Qureshi, Khan and Uprit,
2016).
Further, as per the information provided by the Razia Bano, 2020, The small scale
industries play a pivotal role in the economic activities of a developing country like India as the
small scale industries plays an important role for meeting and achieving the growth aspects and
of a nation and also ensures equality in the society through leading social justice objectives of a
developing nation and economy. It has been seen that small scale industries and other forms of
SME plays and leads a way to generate large scale employment for a nation and especially for
the women by the means of mobilizing advanced skill in females and other resources along with
leading enhancing entrepreneurship and aiding economic process in backward areas through
leading and ensuring overall process of industrialization (SME Sector in India – Statistics,
Trends, Reports, 2017). Further, it has been also observed that small scale industries leads and
ensures better women development and empowerment in India as it lead a way link between
socio economic transformation and motivates and encourages women to come up with new and
more vibrant ideas for their development as they resources requirement of SME is quite low.
Thus, ensures equal level of growth and development opportunity for both males and females.
Further, small scale industries are considered as highly innovative and provides a better base and
framework for women to show and use their creativity as they do not require to maintain any
high cost research and development wings but only requires a skilled and creative mind set to
bring a business into reality (Torri and Martinez, 2014).
Apart from this, with respect to the view point of Paramanandam, D.A. and Packirisamy,
P., 2015, it has been evaluated that the main focus and emphasis of small scale industries is
Women Empowerment in India as it leads and provide employment not only to highly qualified
women but also leads equal opportunities for less and un-qualified women in India for the
purpose of their overall development. Further, Small scale industries helped the women to
develop and identify their own skills and creativity to make best possible use of their potentials
and ability to do and perform a particular in a best possible and most efficient way (Laha and
Kuri, 2014). Thus, SME plays a vital role in building and developing self confidence among
women employees so that they can survive and can effectively work in this competitive world to
become more self sufficient. Beside this, the role and influence of SME in leading women
22

empowerment is clearly reflects through the significant role of small scale industries in leading
maximum job facilities and employment for women which makes them self sufficient in terms of
finance and develop self confidence to work in a more efficient and viable manner to have
improvement in their standards of living and position in the society. Through leading equal and
better employment opportunity for women, the small scale industries had made the more capable
to meet and fulfil the financial needs of their family and at the same time they can also save
sufficient amount of money for their better future which leads increase in the morale of women
and ensures more better empowerment and development of women in Indian Economy (Godinho
Filho, Ganga and Gunasekaran, 2016). Beside this, small scale industries provide an easy way
that facilities a medium and platform for women to protect their interest and make them more
comfortable to work and become self sufficient. Further, women are treated as a vulnerable part
of society in Indian economy but the small scale industries has lead to upliftment in the status of
women through leading equal job opportunity and better way to earn income for both qualified
and unqualified women. Thus, small scale industries leads a vital role in bringing equality in the
society and ensures better empowerment and development of women through attracting more
and more women work force in order to make and encourage them for adequate use of their
skills and knowledge in the process of production which ensures the empowerment and
development along with enhancing their role and importance towards economic development of
the country (Richardson, 2018).
Apart from above literature, the Teoh, W.M.Y. and Chong, S.C., 2014, also specifies that
small scale industries are having a vital role in reducing gender discrimination and leading vital
influence on women empowerment in a male dominated society through leading and ensuring
equal job opportunity and employment for women in India. Building and leading enhanced
morale and boost confidence in women is a viable role of small scale industries that leads and
guarantees women empowerment in Indian society (Cherayi and Jose, 2016). Further, a viable
base and framework is also lead by small scale industries for women to show and reflect their
creativity and innovation. Beside this, the cottage industry and other forms of Handloom and
small level household activities like pickle making, silk and cotton weaving and other framing
and dairy activities leads an easy and convenient way for Women of India to earn income
through leading efficiency and quality in their work with no extra cost or requirement of any
expensive resources. Thus, small scale industries are leading development of skills and
23

competencies in women of India to start and contribute in small level business which ensures
there empowerment through leading a viable and efficient way of job and employment to earn
income and become more self sufficient and financially sound (Singh and Gaur, 2018)(Tomšič,
Bojnec and Simčič, 2015).
Theme 3: SMEs industry environment in India in context of women
Yıldırım, Yıldırım and Çoltu, (2019) stated that India is among the world’s oldest and
largest SME units and has integrated these small industries in both economic as well as
ideological development of the nation. In the context of Indian economy SMEs play vital role in
poverty and employment generation, development of regional and rural areas and establishment
of developmental balance in different regions. These industries are rapidly growing in various
parts of India due to self awareness among women as well as support programs of Indian
government to encourage entrepreneurship particularly in rural India and by women.
However contrary to this Mittal, Sengar and Aagarwal, (2019) elucidated that despite
having vast opportunities and scope for growth several dimensions of Indian culture and region
affects the women empowerment through these SMEs. In India there has been significant gap in
the sex composition. Still there are regions in which percentage of women is very low as
compare to that of males. The wide gender gap creates variations in cultural and social pattern of
and thus leads to formation of male dominating societies where women entrepreneurs still faces
criticism by their own families as well as other members of community.
According to Verma, (2017) marital status and concepts in Indian society are also
important factor in affecting women empowerment. The marital status and scope are varied as
per the religious differences. Thus there are many women's who have potential to successfully
operate or work in small industries but after their marriage they are not encouraged to continue
their growth. Similarly, widows are also isolated from main stream and are not expected to
practice this. However with increasing government support, education and growth opportunities
in SMEs these stereotypes are regularly being challenged by women and India has been proving
to be favourable hub for women entrepreneurs.
As per the view of Egels-Zandén, (2017) the most significant aspect which must be taken
into account for SMEs and role of women is occupational structure and wages for women
worker. Indian culture and societies follow well segmented structure in which primary duty of
24

women is to provide care to their families. Thus even if women provide financial support to their
family they are expected to equally fulfil their responsibility and household related
responsibilities. It creates excessive work burden in terms of overall working hours on women.
In orthodox sections of India still women entrepreneurs are forced to choose either family or
professional duties because they are not supported equally by their family members.
In the same context Fazalbhoy and Naik, (2019) described that in Indian SMEs there has
been also difference in promotional opportunities and wages for women. For the same work the
small industries provide unequal wages to men and women. The maternity responsibilities of
women also act as one of the factors which restricts the growth of women in these industries.
Most of the industry owners assumes that after having children women may not be able to
provide services and thus they are not liable to receive equal wages or treatment. The inequality
in wages, work conditions and growth opportunities must be addressed through suitable policies.
However, these issues can be resolved and despite having them SMEs can be considered as great
means to promote women empowerment in all aspects.
On the basis of views expressed by Riaz, S. and Pervaiz, Z., 2018, it has been determined
that the environment of the SME is not at all supportive and is lack of opportunity for the women
who are initiating their career after a long break or planning to start it for the very first time. The
main reason behind increasing influence of the SMEs towards hiring skilled male staff who are
the more flexible as compared to women and also owns capability of managing their own things
as per their own manner. Along with this, it has been acknowledged that the women does not get
any sort of flexibility within the small entities’ because their core focus is on maximising their
organisational output rather than providing the learning opportunities as well as the chance of
adopting personalised management style which allows them to take decisions at their own level
and move forward towards their own career. Apart from this, the range of options which could be
pursued by the women in which they are planning to start their career are, content writing, small
scale manufacturing, tax and legal advisory, accounting services, food and catering, tele
marketing and training, small scale BPO’s , housekeeping and many others. But still in all the
areas expectation of entities to hire a highly skilled employee with the good educational as well
as experience based work. Apart from this, it can be further said that the small businesses often
look after the skilled women. These businesses are not just stucking themselves at the
educational background or the experience of the same person. Rather than this these businesses
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look after the skills and creativity of the women which could help them out in maximising their
organisational performance along with the productivity that ultimately leads to enhancement of
the profitability within the same sector. The same thing is not possible for the women each time
as they are not been developed with the same person.
On the other hand, if it is talked about the large scale companies it can be said that
bushiness belonging to the same level emphasizes on their core process of selecting candidates
based on job description developed by human resource department. it simply includes
standardised global principles that directly keeps the business entity out of the talent
experimentation which also provides the number of business or job opportunity that could have
been provided to the women for their bright future. Apart from this, when it is emphasised on the
small or medium scale businesses it can be said that SMEs has very limited number of job
opportunities within their entity in terms of the job. This simply states that the woman does not
gets lots of support in the SMEs as they are working at the new job role thus the superiors or the
leaders of the women believes that they are not capable of performing the same work due to lack
of experience they must provide adequate level of guidance to the women as they are working
for the new post. This support from the superiors is rarely seen at workplace of SMEs. Thus, if
the required guidance is not provided to the women then it won’t be possible for them to tackle
work or they might not able to sustain longer within the same entity. This clear support of
superiors influences interest of the women towards the SMEs is lower over large scale
companies because the learning opportunity as well as the growth options they are getting at this
sector won’t be able to accomplish them in the small or medium sized companies.
Specific sectors in SME
As per the data presented by Aslesen, H.W. and Harirchi, G., 2015, SME sector is
emerged to be one of the most crucial sector within the health of Indian economy which in turn
contribute toward innovation, employment, inclusive growth and exports within the economy.
SME is consider as the backbone of social as well as economic growth of India which is
accountable for around 45% of total industrial production, 40% to the total export and contribute
much significantly to GDP. The manufacturing segmented within SME is consider to be most
significant as it contribute toward 7.09% of GDP, 30.50% of services and the total contribution
of MSME to GDP is around 37.54 (SME Sector In India. 2020).
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According to Dolly , 2017, when the global economy has been struggling from the
financial crises and working toward improving the growth rate. At global growth rate it has been
identified that last year and current year is marked as 3.40% to 3.80%. But as compare to that the
India's GDP continues to grow at a rapid pace and also outstripping the major world economies.
As per the report of IMF, India is projected to grow at the rate of 7.80% for this fiscal year and
main reason behind this growth is SME sector of country which mainly includes food
processing, manufacturing, infrastructure, packaging, service industry, IT and Chemicals. These
all get emerged with the most vibrant as well as dynamic engine of growth of Indian economy
from last few decades. These are mainly self funded proprietary firms, private self-help groups,
Khadi, private co-operatives and Village and Coir industries. These not only provide with huge
employment opportunity rather also ensure about the regional balance by taking up the
industrialisation within rural and backward areas. From the statistical report of SME sector of the
country it has been found that there are around 42.50 million SME operating within India that are
registered and unregistered and employ around 106 million, which means around 40% India's
workforce. It involve around 6.11% of manufacturing GDP of country and 24.36% of service
sector GDP. As per the information presented within the report of American express Global
SME Pulse 2017 it was stated that 37% of Indian SME consider flexible lending as well as
repayment where 49% of high interest rate as an important factor which affect their business.
With the economy of India it is expected to touch $5 trillion by 2025 along with ground breaking
economic reform.
Apart from this, as per the view point of Dolly, 2017, it has been find out that SMEs are
one of the key drivers and plays a crucial role in growth story of every nation. The SME consist
of and comprises of many business and industries like manufacturing firm, infrastructure sector,
service industry along with food processing unit, packaging services, chemicals, and other IT and
digitally based online companies which has emerged as one of the most vibrant and dynamic
engine for better growth of Indian economy over the past few decades. There are many specific
sectors of SME that are mainly bifurcated into three categories that are classified on the basis of
Manufacturing and Service Sector Enterprises which are discussed as below:
Micro organisation- These are the SME and orgnisation which are having an investment
of up to Rs.1 core in Plant and Machinery or Equipment and are earning an annual Turnover
which should not exceed Rs. 5 core (Wellalage and Locke, 2017).
27

Small enterprise- These are the sector of SME that are having an investment of up to
Rs.10 core in the total investment made in Plant and Machinery or Equipment along with an
annual Turnover which should not exceed Rs. 50 crore.
Medium Sized enterprise- These accounts for the orgnisation in India that are having an
investment of around Rs.50 crore along with having an annual Turnover and profit of amount
which does not exceed Rs. 250 crore in Plant and Machinery or Equipment installed into the
business operations.
Further, as per the information provided by the Badini, Hajjar and Kozak, 2018, the
specific sector of SME in India consists of Retail Trade, Forestry and logging, Fishing and
aquaculture, activities of households and all other forms of Cottage Industries in India. Cottage
industry is mainly concentrated and associated form of a small scale industry that can be easily
started by an individual with very low requirements of investments and resources (An Overview
Of Cottage Industries In India: Scope and Challenges, 2019). The cottage industry has basically
originated in the rural areas where unemployment and underemployment are prevalent thus,
provides an easy and convenient way to individuals for employment and helps the Indian
economy to grow and prosper by involving the unemployed workforce of rural areas in more
productive and efficient form of jobs and employment. The specific sector ands form of SME
and cottage industry that are commonly seen in India consists of following main operations
which are discussed and evaluated below:
Cotton Weaving: It is the one of the most important form and sector of cottage industry
and SME in India as cotton clothes are widely used and worn across all the parts of the country.
The women are most efficiently involved and forms a vital part of cotton weaving industry as
they are capable of producing and leading vibrant colour, traditional designs and variety of
patterns on cotton clothes which lead increase in the demand for cotton clothes in the country
and leading enhanced development and empowerment of this sector of SME and women (Thorpe
and et. al., 2016).
Silk Weaving: It is also a viable form and part of specific sector of SME in India as it is a
major producer and exporter of silk. Women are actively involved in silk weaving especially in
the silk weaving industries which are situated in Karnataka and forms a apart of 70% of total silk
production of India. Mulberry, Tassore, Muga, and Eri are the various types of silks that are
produced by women in the country.
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Carpet Making: It also forms a vital part if SME and lead employment opportunity for
many women across the country as the Carpet export council has been set up by the Indian
government for promoting the knotted rugs and various other types of floor coverings from
across the country. This specific sector of SME promotes and support better development of
women through leading a better way of handloom services and employment opportunity for
women through ensuring making of coir carpet which are in great demand owing to its superior
quality and texture (Calman, 2019).
Female entrepreneurs contribution globally
As per the information presented by the VanderBrug. J., 2013, Women entrepreneurship
has hit the media tipping point as the women-owned entities within the formal sector has now
represented around 37% of enterprises globally. From the overall assessment of global
environment a study was presented by Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) which founded
that around 126 million women are current running the business and around 98 million are
operating the currently established businesses. Additionally it has been found that 224 million
women are impacting the economy world wide. These female entrepreneur crosses the spectrum
which is from micro to high growth which support from life to creating wealth. These mainly
includes high tech visionaries, hair salon owners and many more which are creating a critical
economic contribution to global economy. The contribution of the women entrepreneur can be
consider with the help of three aspects such as,
Reinvestment: - Within the emerging market women’s are reinvesting a staggering 90
cents of every dollar of income within the human resource in term of their families, health,
nutrition, education as compare to men who add this part in ration of 30-40%.
Job creation: Despite of their own income, 112 million of GEM surveyed entrepreneurs
employ one or more people. It is expected that around 12 million expected to employ around six
people within next five year. This represent around 72 million jobs from this small sample.
Innovation: When it is about offering a product which is new to some or all the
customers within some region addition to US and Europe women entrepreneur are having higher
degree of innovation as compare to male counterpart.
Hence, this can be present that women are playing a crucial role in growth and
development of countries by getting involve in entrepreneurship and empowerment. From the
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recent study made by Dow Jones research over the venture backed company within US found
those which are successful had twice women on their founding team. So it has been found that if
women's labour participation were closer to male participation it would contribute to around $1T
to GDP of emerging economies. From this study it has been found that women within US and
other develop European countries, women are less likely to perceive that they hold the capability
to start a business.
On the other side, according to Chavern. D. C. and MCKernan. J. R., 2020, this seems to
be counter intuitive but the small businesses bring up a huge impact over the American economy.
With the increasing awareness more and more women joined the small business whose effect is
growing. It has been found that the women owned firms have grown one and half time more then
small businesses from last 15 years and consider to be accountable for nearly 30% of businesses.
Around 90% of women-owned businesses have no employees other than the business owner as
comper to around 82% of total firm. And only 2% of the women-owned firms have around 10
employees. This kind of discrepancy suggest that more support must be exerted toward women
in order to build up their business successfully, so that more jobs can be generated and economy
can also grow. The economy of US is growing with the self employed women entrepreneurs as
well as small business owners. This successful solo enterprise operated by women that grow into
the employer firms, understanding about the character as well as impacting the contribution
toward creating the environment which help women in scaling up the business and ultimately
serving the national and international market with groundbreaking and unique way. From this it
has been found that women are likely to be self employed within western state. In this Oregon
rank first in US with 45.4% of self employed workers female.
On the other side, Castrillon. C., 2019 stated that the number of women owned business
within US are increasing at a rapid pace. As per the report presented within 2018 State of
Women Owned Business Report which is commissioned by American Express it has been found
that between the year 2017 to 2018 women started an average of 1821 new businesses per day
within US. Now women are making up whopping 40% of the new entrepreneur it is clear that
more nad more women are getting into entrepreneurship than ever before. Other than this an
another report published by the Harvard Business Review that the women arent promote quickl;y
as compare to men. This is the reason many women are leaving the corporate as their corporates
are not inspiring them. They are now more focused toward star8ing up a business that allow
30

them to find meaning as well as giving them the ability to leave behind the legacy to make
themselves proud.
On the other side, if it is about United Kingdom then it has been found that from the
information presented by Henry, C. and et. al., 2015, women led businesses are contributing
around £3.51bn to the economy of UK and this in turn has created around 77000 jobs within the
year 2015 which is presented within the study of Royal Bank Of Scotland. This research al;so
represented that in Scotland the women led business contribute around £268bn toward the
economy of country. On the other side it is a;lso identified that the proportion of UK's female
working population starting up a business with nearly get doubled which is from 3.7% to 7.1%
between the year 2009 top 2012 which in turn tailed off. Despite of this london is consider to be
most popular location for the starting up of a business with around 33,200 new companies that
get launched by women during year 2015. additionally in other citires of UK such as 5100 start-
up by women in Birmingham, 5200 launched within Manchester, 1400 in Edinburgh and 1900 in
Glasgrow (Female entrepreneurs contribute £3.51billion to the UK economy, 2017). Despite of
this strong growth among the female entrepreneurship overall since 2009, the women setting up
business within UK are still lagging behind the countries like Canada, US etc. which is costing
the UK economy £1bn a year.
On the other hand, as per the information presented by the Ward. S., 2019, about the
contribution of Canadian women within country. It has been found that the women self owned
business within Canada are still growing. The women within Canada are much more likely to
start up or run a small business within retail sector or service sector despite of getting a job
within another business as discrimination lies everywhere and they found more growth
opportunity in self owned business. From a survey it has been found that there are around 85% of
Canadian women who are interested in starting up their own business. Among them 13.3% are
involved within newer businesses and around 10% are established within the businesses as
compare to men where the ration is 20.3% and 7.1% respectively. The Canadian wmen are
ranked as 1st position in term of their involvement within new business ahead with the US,
Britain and other innovative economies. The women of Canada are more engaged in innovation
where they are consider as 35.9% women who owned new business while on the others side
there are around 44.0% male owned business.
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But in comparison to this India is also operating at this scale where women are also
moving to enter into front of the line to start up their own business and contribute towards the
growth of country. Over this it has been stated by Sumana. M., 2020, In Indian society women
are mainly consider limited to kitchen. From this face only women started entering into business
where the business is mainly become the extension of kitchen activities such as pickle, powder
and pappad. With the support of various governmental scheme as well as the efforts of several
voluntary organisation such as Mahila Mandal, there are number of women entrepreneurs who
are growing slowly. But it has been found that their proportion within upcoming five years will
likely to goes up by 20% by raising the number of women entrepreneurs to around 500000. With
the increasing education and awareness among the women entrepreneurs, the focuses from
kitchen activities is move toward some more higher level of activities such as engineering,
energy and electronics. Despite of this women are also putting u p tehir units within
manufacturing of solar cooker in Gujarat, small foundries within Maharastra, TV capacitors in
Odisha and electronic ancillaries in Kerala.
According to the information presented by Gowthaman. N., and Norzom. T., 2020,
entrepreneurship is consider to be a vital component within a country as it not only help in
improving the economy by boosting up the employment rate rather also help in transforming the
social as well as personal outcome fro the women. Today India maintain around 13.5-15.7
million women owned enterprises which represents around 20% of the total enterprises. This in
turn directly provide employment to 22 to 27 million people. Benchmarks related with the high
performing countries as well as Indian states provide with a good yardstick for India which
accelerate total of the female entrepreneurship. This accelerating quantity and quality of
entrepreneurship toward such benchmark creates around 30 million women owned enterprise
among which 40% can be more then self employed.
From the survey it has been found that approximately of 432 million working age women
within India and out of which about 343 million are not paid to the formal work. From the
estimates of 324 million of these women are not consider in the labour force and despite of this
another 19 million people are in the labour force but not actually employed. Hence it has been
found that the Women's labour force participation rate (LFPR) in India is consider to be the
lowest within the world and is also continue to be declining. Ironically it has bene found that
women who are actively participating within the workforce are consider to be 2.9 times more as
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compare to men unemployment. The overall unemployment within India is determined as 7% but
when it is consider in women category then it is around 18 %.
A report is being published in year 2019 by Her story's, which reveals that funding raised
by the female founding team within India in year 2018 was 0.63 percept abysmal from the total
of the $13 billion which get raised by the entrepreneur within the ecosystem. It also reveal the
data that only 34 companies are their which get headed by the female founder that raised around
$80 million of funding. On comparison to this around 103 companies with male and female co-
founder have raised total of fund $607 million. The women entrepreneurship when accelerated to
meet with its full quality and quantity can be lead to the creation of around 30 million women
owned enterprises. This in turn can potentially transform the employment within the country by
150-170 million of new jobs as per the study.
Theme 4: The challenges faced by women and examine best practices for female owned
SME's
The challenges faced by women
Mamanshetty, S.V., 2018, Stated that just like every other sector the gender norms are
also affecting the entrepreneurship ecosystem as well as creating the challenges for women. As it
can be seen within the information presented by the Gender inequality in entrepreneurship it has
been stated that there are very few women entrepreneurs as compare to men within OECD
countries and also the women owned enterprises are having an average lower profit. This
difference lies because the women and men both are different in term of reason fro which they
become an entrepreneurs. Among them women usually starts their business due to necessity and
combining work with their private life, but on other hand men usually starts their business by
realisation of an idea. Women usually have come up with all their home duties and add it to the
duties at their work lives which in turn lead less time to have access over their business. Despite
of this several other challenges also restrict a women in getting enter within entrepreneurship.
In continuation to this, as per the information accessed from the research of Sinha. D. k.,
2020, there are number of issues that women within India faces while entering into the field or
trying to become a women entrepreneur. These are mentioned below:
Male dominated society: Mal chauvinism is still staying in each and every part of India.
The constitution of India speaks a lot about equality in gender but still the discrimination among
both the sex and priority to male always remain within the practice of society and women are
33

consider to be weak in comparison to male. There are several problems a woman has to face
while seeking for a job or getting start with her own business such as male reservation on
women’s role, capability, ability and treated accordingly. Hence, due to all these women get less
opportunity to grow and not able to enter into entrepreneurship.
Low risk bearing ability: Women within India leads to a protected life and having a
disadvantage of lower literacy rate as well as economically not self-dependent. This in turn
reduce their ability to bear risk that is present within running an enterprise which is one of the
crucial factor for becoming successful entrepreneurs. Other than this lack of support, social
attitude, low achievement needs etc. area also some of the factors which restrict them to take risk
and as a result sometimes they don’t get able to achieve success.
Family ties: Within India women are responsible to take care of family and men perform
secondary role. The total involvement of her within family leave no energy and time to devote
for business. Additionally the approval of husband seems very much necessary for women to
enter within business. Here lies the major issue or challenge which restrict them to start up a new
busines and grow.
Stiff competition: Women entrepreneurs usually do not have any organisational set up in
order to pump up the money to finance all the operational and promotional related practices. As a
result of which they have to face a huge competition for the marketing of product within the
organised sector as well as male counterpart. This competition ends up with eth liquidation of
women enterprise when such businesses do not get access to right advice, opportunity to grow
and support to deal with competition.
On the other hand, according to the Fernandes. P. and Sanfilippo. M., 2020, the women
owned business is still within the minority and the issues faced by women who have embraced
entrepreneurship that are vast and often become different from those experienced from the male
counterpart. There are certain challenges that women mainly face while becoming an
entrepreneur or planning to do so. These are mentioned below:
Struggling to be taken seriously: The male dominating industry or workplace is the
major challenging factor for the women as at such place they are not acknowledge over their
leadership role. Hence in this male dominating industry it is very much difficult fro female
entrepreneurs to earn respect. This is so because where males are given more preference, females
34

are consider weaker and as a result they get less support and access to opportunity which act as a
barrier in their growth.
Building a support network: The main factor which support and plays a major roel
within the success of a entrepreneur is robust support network which si actually not always
avaialbel to women. As per the study it has bene found that around 48% of female founders
reported that there is a lack of availability of advisors and mentors which in turn limit their
personal growth. As if it seen among the majority of higher level of business world still remain
more dominated by men which make it more harder to create a path among them and facilitate
with the introductions and connections within some of the more elite business networks.
Therefore, this become one of the most challenging task for women to have a stronger network
which is a base for the sustainability of any business.
Reason behind lacking women in entrepreneurship
From the view point of Korreck. S., 2019, there are number of start-ups and new
businesses have been founded within India from over last decade and majority of them are
operated by men. While many of the Indian women have entrepreneurial ambition but still it is
often more difficult for them to succeed in this field along with a male dominated concept. Even
it has been found that India involve in hose countries where women business owners are
struggling and finding it difficult for them to survive with pronounced cultural biases, less
favourable condition and lack of business resources like capital, finance, training and
development. A society where women not able to realise their potential mainly loses out the
significant potential fir the economic growth , innovation and job creation. From a recent study it
had bene found that measures to gender gap could lead to 6.8 percent gain within GDP. But from
another study it has been found that the advancing women’s equality within India help nation in
boosting up the GDP by $0.7 trillion by the year 2025. For this entrepreneurship is consider to be
a critical factor for harnessing the economic potential of women and tis help in achieving the
sustainability development goals. This become possible with the entrepreneurship access and
support to women. But as per the survey perform among 57 countries it has bene found that it is
ranked as 52 due to lack of entrepreneurial opportunities to them. There are several reasons that
are lacking women behind in this race of entrepreneurship and within the world of start ups.
Some of them are unequal education system which is an issues that holding the women back and
this is not any coincident that women with higher literacy rate having more women entrepreneurs
35

within India. There are top five states that are higher percentage of entrepreneurs who are female
such as Kerala, Tamil nandu, west Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. But still there are
several areas where women are lacking in entrepreneurial practices and reason behind it are
mentioned below:
Unconscious gender bias: The unconscious gender biasness is all about the
unintentional and automatic mental association which is based on gender, norm, culture, value,
stemming from tradition and experiences. This means that gender bias not always a factor which
lead the women remain away from the access of opportunity but it remain in the ideology of
people which in turn sometimes make them feel that biasness is the main cause which not let
them grow. As from the survey it has been found that young women who entered into
entrepreneurship said that they do not experience any kind of gender bias till yet while they are
struggling with various of the challenges. But on the other side senior women entrepreneurs were
rather disillusioned as wella s described that being a women entrepreneur is difficult as one have
to face discrimination based on gender.
Access to finance: While entrepreneurship is consider as a path with full of risk taking
process but it has been found that women are consider to less likely willing to take risk. Other
than this they get less access to financial support as comper to male (Priyadarshini, P. and
Abhilash, P.C., 2020). As when a women approach investors then they perceive differently by
the investors as compare to male and the investors mainly prefer the pitches presented by men in
comparison with female. Despite of this other difficulty found in financing is within procurement
of the fund due to the fact that women usually have rarely owned property that they can use as a
collateral security for loan. Moreover in India about 79 per cent of women owned businesses are
self financed but still the families found it difficult and also hesitate in supporting their daughter
in entrepreneurial venture financially which is a major factor which is holding back the women
of India in getting entrepreneurial access.
Networking and relationships: Masculine corporate culture are consider as one of the
most cited barrier for the leadership of women. In this culture women are tend to feel aliened in
this culture and from an interview it has been said that the women usually feel uncomfortable in
prominent industry networks (Goel, S. and Gupta, P., 2019). But the strong network are consider
to be very much crucial for becoming successful within entrepreneurship. But the Women
36

entrepreneurs miss out this opportunity to get connect with people in marketplace and thus
struggle even more than that of males with getting access to the market.
Safety in work and public places: The safety for the women at their home, during
meetings and workplace is also one of the major issue which is holding them back to grow as a
leader. One among this place in India is Delhi which is consider as fourth global start-up city
continues to be notoriously poor within providing safety to women and there remains a higher
rate of sexual crime. From the investigation it has bene found that women are required to leave
the office earlier as public space is consider to be unsafe for them after a certain time within
evening. Moreover the perception of getting stuck within such issue reinforce social norms that
restrict a women mobility and thereby their economic freedom and participation.
Hence, it can be said that harnessing the full potential by the women entrepreneur support
in promoting the innovation, economic growth as well as job creation. But the issues and
challenges faced by the women in India during entrepreneurship is so high that it do not allow
the female to come up with new ideas or potential toward their personal growth as well as
nation’s growth. There are number of issues which female have to face such as discrimination,
lack of access to finance, safety and security at place.
On the other hand according to Nathani. K., 2017, the entrepreneurial practices is not for
all as it require courage, commitment as well as most importantly persistence to begin the
journey. For this the Indian women has come up with a long way when it is about the
entrepreneurship. But still so much of struggle the women of India have to face several issues
while approaching entrepreneurship. The number of issues that women actually faces are
mentioned below:
Gender biasness: A well known female entrepreneur Neha Bahri who is a founder of
Media Update communique stated that she has battled a lot over the gender biasness in her
attempt toward growing over the venture in PR and media industry. The starting up of a venture
without a male co founder is sometimes become a daunting task for women. As society think that
women can not work good in strategizing marketing technique within India.
Lack of women mentors in tech sector: A women who want to be enter into Tech
industry specially one who want to start by their own is required to be having extremely strategic
and having a strength over time management. But lack of mentors for women within the
technological sector is a big issue. This is so because women get jobs but do not able to pursue
37

their career within the technology passionately. Addition to this, for women the standard of
living and doing well within life is set by the society that are education, marriage nad starting up
a family. This is so because women have to present little more efforts then male in order to
establish their credibility as per the tech entrepreneur even if they are holding same skills and
capability as male who make up 90 per cent of techprenuers.
Policy Hiccups: having work in the favourable policy of the top most economies such as
US France, entrepreneurs often get difficulties in dealing with the time consumption, procedural
work when it is about India. This is so because the corruption within the country is so high where
for performing the operations smoothly, clearing penalties for sending the raw material from one
place to another a person has to present the government official with bribe.
Challenges like finance, network etc faced by women and why men are considered better
As per the view point of Dr. Lakshmi Mohan, 2019, money is important along with the
financial prudence to ensures better future. It has been evaluated that both men and women faces
financial challenges but in case of women this challenge is much more severe and highlighted as
they lack proper supervision and support. It has been observed in Indian culture and households
that men are taken as master of family and having the responsibility of bread winner and feeding
family along with leading financial support for the family since many centuries. But this,
scenario is different for women as in Indian culture women are categorized and recognised as the
one who is having the responsibility to cook and take care of family and educated on the
housework instead of having lesions about financial independence (O'Hara and Clement, 2018).
Thus, the financial challenges for women in India springs up and starts arising up from the very
upbringing stage as a small girl from where they are on the side where no importance is given for
financial independence for women. Thus, it can be evaluated that females faces much more
challenges related with financial aspects in their life because of lack of proper knowledge
regarding financial management and also have limited network to gain financial support or help
to overcome the financial challenges that is mainly due to lack of viable network and connection.
Beside this, with respect to the information provided by the Yasmin Bin-Humam, 2017, it
has been evaluated that financial inclusion is a big challenge for women as it has been find out
that nearly one of every three women in the world that accounts for 1.1 billion population of
globe is merely excluded from the formal financial system that represent the severe conditions of
women in terms of financial inclusion in the world. Further, it has been also observed that
38

women are 7 % less likely to have access to basic transactional accounts as compared to men and
this disparity is more commonly and oftenly seen in the population that rises among poor. Beside
this, it has been also observed that women are 28 % less likely as compared to men to have a
bank account thus, there savings are more vulnerable to theft, loss and exploitation which
reinforce the cycle of poverty and boost the finical challenges and risk for women (De Vita, Mari
and Poggesi, 2014). Thus, with this discussion about the global scale of women financial
exclusion it is clear that there is lack of universal financial assess for women and there are many
challenges which hamper this expanding assess of women towards universal financial inclusion
and development. Some of the main financial challenges and issues faced by women that makes
them vulnerable and inferior than men are discussed below:
Difficulty to reach women through the usual channels that target men- It has been find
out that it is difficult to reach women through usual channels of payment that target men which
consists of payment and remittance channels along with lack of saving accounts that contributes
in making women more financially week and creates many financial challenge. It has been seen
in many parts of Eastern Europe and also in central Asia that only a 18 % of total number of
women are reported that are receiving regular wages in their account as compared with 49 % of
men. Further, it has been also observed that men are twice likely to receive there domestic
remittance as compared to women receive there wages (Svensson and Wamala Larsson, 2016).
Thus, it can be evaluated that lack of proper bank account and assess to viable channel of finance
is a big reason that is leading and boosting financial issues and risk for women as compared to
men who are mainly target by these channels and have proper bank account and assess to
channel to receive regular wages and remittance which makes them better than women in terms
of financial inclusion.
Providers have less incentives to cater to women- It has observed that financial providers
and support mainly lead and have less incentives to cater to women as compared to men because
the margins are taken smaller and it has been also seen that women require some more upfront
and extra investment to bring on as customers thus, it is difficult to lower transactions costs for
women as they mainly deals in small sums. Further, women are mainly choose to operate in
informal products especially for savings and reaching them with formal products leads to higher
costs in form of explaining products to them thus, small incentives are given by provides to cater
39

women that also leads and boost financial challenge for women (Kaushik, Sharma and Kaushik,
2014).
Social Norms constrain women’s demand for financial services- The social norms and
culture of India and many other regions not expected and encouraged the financial independence
of women. It has been seen that sometimes there are mobility constraints and challenges that
make it difficult for women to engage with financial institution which makes them more
vulnerable and expose to financial challenges. Further, it has been also observed that the family
members and business and even the Indian Family law does not provided much more financial
support to Women as 17 economies where there which leads husbands the power to constrain
their wives’ mobility outside the home and in some of the worst cases women act merely just as
a transfer mechanism for financial products for men which is further distorting the nature of
demand (Chew, Ilavarasan and Levy, 2015). Apart from this, the cultural norms and society of
India and other parts of Asia are still having the families which found it difficult and hesitate in
supporting their daughter and women of the family in terms of finance and monetary befits and
handover all savings and property only to the men of the family which is a major factor that is
holding back the women and leading financial challenges for them. Thus, it can be evaluated that
the social norms and cultural practises are also the main reasons that accounts for and leads
several financial and network challenges for women.
Women have less access to technology as compared to men- The another vital issues and
challenge that boost financial risk for women is associated with their limited assess to network
and technology. It has been observed that women have a less access to latest technology and
other mobile and computer apps which acts as the latest game changer in the today’s world that
could radicalize and enhance the rates of financial inclusion. Further, the gender gap that is
prevailing in the society and male dominance culture are also specifically targeting the women
and boosting financial risk for them (Agarwal, 2020). Limited access to technology hampers the
number of opportunity for women and also lead to less efficient financial transition and
management that is a main cause and reason behind enhanced financial challenges for women as
compared to men as they are not having much reach and assess to digital finance.
Thus, it can be evaluated that many issues and reasons are there which leads to high
financial risk for women as compared to men. Further, as per the information provided by Mira
Brancu, 2019, it has been also observed that there are many barriers like barriers of focus,
40

perception, introversion, fear and high level of authenticity that leads a many networking
challenges for the women (Chawinga and Chipeta, 2017). Further, the high level of gender gap
and introversion attitude are also the main reasons that limits the exposure and networking of
women with external environment which holds women back in their professional growth and
also hamper their success while moving on a high stakes jobs or high visibility projects. It has
been observed that better networking requires a high level of show off along with leading self
promotion and market yourself which is effectively done by the men but the women find it fake
and excessive along with inauthentic which limits there networking and effective relationship
with outer world (Yawar and Seuring, 2018).
Best practices for female owned SME's in India
According to Yadav and Unni, (2016) there are various legislative and social framework
which supports women entrepreneurs in India. The factories act of 1948 describes the health and
safety regulations, working hours, health and welfare considerations for women as well as
maternity benefits for encouraging the women empowerment by increasing their role in SMEs.
In Indian society women are liable to pay complete attention to their families and children and
thus even if they equally contribute in SME growth they are expected to fulfil their both personal
and professional responsibilities. To enhance the support women entrepreneurs are given both
per and post maternity leaves so that they can receive equal support from their family members.
In the same aspect Ismail, (2016) stated that likewise other parts of the world SMEs in
India have provision of some extra service benefits such as flexible work hours, workplace
safety, easy funding and loan facilities. Though at present these are not extended to large scale
but a significant number of women's in India are receiving benefits from these. As per the view
of Ramadani, Gerguri-Rashiti and Fayolle, (2015) government policies also play a crucial role
which inspires women as well as other male members of the family to support women. It
promote women empowerment in terms of decision making and finance. For example Cent
Kalyani scheme of Central Bank of India provides loan of up to 1 Crore to retail or agricultural
women entrepreneurs without any guarantors or collateral. This type of scheme make it
beneficial for the women to start up their own business and since it provides huge relaxation their
husband, father or male guardians are also supportive in such economic decisions and actions
(Chawla and Sujatha, 2015). Similarly udyogini scheme in India provides support and help to
41

poor and illiterate women so that women from rural or backward region can also receive
financial support for small and medium enterprises.
According to Garg and Agarwal, (2017) schemes of Indian government such as Mudra
Yojana scheme, TREAD, Mahila udyam nidhi scheme and Dena shakti scheme for providing
financial empowerment to women who desire to initiate business. Apart from the financial and
cost benefits women empowerment cannot be achieved without education and skills
development. In rural areas of India still women education is one of the biggest challenge in
empowerment of women. Thus for assuring equal participation of women in economy and SMEs
it is necessary that women's must be provided equal and fair chances for enhancing their
knowledge and skills.
For empowering women they must be given freedom to take decision for their
investments and expenses. Patil and Deshpande, (2018) stated that for increasing role of women's
there is also need to change or improve the social and cultural aspects of women. The women
can also utilise their abilities and skills when they are supported by their families. It must be
accepted that household responsibilities must be shared among all house members instead of
shifting it completely to women (Bui, Kuan and Chu, 2018). It will eliminate the excessive work
burden on women and they will demonstrate their abilities with more enthusiasm and efficiency.
Beside this, as per the view point of Karen Miller, 2015, it has been evaluated that a
growth is seen in the women owned business especially in sector of SME but still there are many
tremendous gap and issues that limits the assess of women towards finance to lead more
enhanced opportunity and growth perceptive. The best practises for female owned SME in India
are also emprises on leading better ways to finance in order to lead better support and help for
SME owned by women. Thus, the Best practices for female owned SME's in India consists of
following main points and factors to enhance their success level and ensure better growth and
development:
Know Your Market and Customer- The first and foremost practises that is best suitable
for women for leading success of SME in India is having and leading better knowledge and
awareness about the market and customers for which they wants to work and operate a business.
Thus, the Best practices for female owned SME's in India consists of leading and conducting
effective market research and segmentation that forms a critical prcatises to successfully serving
their target market and customer (Sharaunga, Mudhara and Bogale, 2015).
42

View Women-Led SMEs as a Distinct Group- The another vital practises and step that
could be taken to support women owed SME consists of leading women’s market and SME as a
distinct and separate segment within the bank along with a distinct value proposition for them to
lead enhanced financial support. Further, treating women owned SME as distinct segment would
ensures higher respect and enhanced importance which lead to better development and growth of
women owned SME in India (Desai, 2020).
Build Internal Capacity- The another best practises that could be adopted to lead better
women oriented SME consists of building internal capability and strength of women to meet
their entrepreneur competencies by the way of creating, reforming and supporting development
activities (Capacity Building and Change : Women and Development in India, 2020). Further,
building internal capability is a best practices for female owned SME's in India as it ensures and
facilitates better experience and strength knowledge and strategies for females to operate and
lead there SME business in more effective and better way for its enhanced success and growth.
Adapt Credit Processes, Lending Methodologies and Delivery Models- The another best
practises that could be adopted by female based SMEs in India consists of integration and use if
more standardised measures like credit scoring and other measures which help theses’ SME to
assess and mitigate risk of failures and ensures more effective development and growth of female
owned SME in India. Further, adoption of credit process and lending methodologies also leads to
better analysis of formal as well as informal data associated with operations and growth of SME
and helpful in maintaining more effective track records for performance of female owned SME
for effective outlook (Arora and Aggarwal, 2018). Thus, leading effective credit process and
granting score cards is a best practises to have more effective track records about the
development and efficiency of female owned SME so that a better future outlook is possible to
support effective development and growth of theses female oriented SME in India.
Offering comprehensive mix of financial and non –financial products and services-
The another best practises associated with the female oriented SME is related with the offering a
better mix of both financial and non-financial set of products and services to lead more and
enhanced opportunity for their growth along with leading better profit margin. It has been
evaluated that females owned SME are mainly seen in non-financial products and services that
consists of handicraft work, cottage industry and other dairy and farming products which limits
growth and development opportunity for women oriented SME. Thus, leading an equal mix of
43

both non financial and financial aspects of product and services including investment service,
savings institutions, credit unions and other form of credit card companies is a best prcatises for
enhanced development and growth of female owned SMEs in India (Chant and McIlwaine,
2015).
Roel played by government in empowering women in India
As per the data presented by Pujari. A. A., 2016, empowering women is about providing
females with enough opportunity so that they can present their worth and this remains the major
concern of government. From the CFO of PepsiCo Indrani Nooyi to the Shahnaz Hussain the
owner of cosmetic company within India, there are number of women entrepreneurs within India
who are shining within the corporate world. More and more women are joining this business
world and entrepreneurship day by day. So, women are confronting the old thoughts and
stereotype factor of the society to grow and all they need is to have a proper inspiration,
promotion and training. Despite of all this the government has also taken up initiative for
ensuring that the women get properly educated, guided and informed about the countless
opportunity it has to offer. There are several actions that are undertaken by the government in
this regard which are mentioned below:
 Trade related entrepreneurship assistance and development scheme for women:
This is a scheme which is started by government in order to provide women with the
proper trade related training to women, information and counselling along with the
extension of activities that are related with the products, trade, services etc. Along with
this the government grant up to 30 per cent of the total project cost which are appraised
by the lending institution which further finance the left 70 per cent as a loan assistance to
the women who applied for this. This scheme is mainly developed for the poor as well as
illiterate or semi literate women in order to assist them in starting up the business.
 Mahaila Vikas Nidhi: This fund scheme is being established by the SIDBI for helping
women within the rural area to start up their business. Under this loan is granted to
women in order to assist them in starting up their venture within the field like weaving,
embroidery, spinning, knitting, block printing, bamboo products, handlooms, handicrafts
etc. This scheme help the women belongs to backward area to access the market by
providing fund to invest and starting their work. This programme of Mahaila Vikas Nidhi
44

is mainly started and launched by the Small Industries Development Bank of India
(SIDBI) which has been specially implementing two special schemes for leading
empowerment and betterment of women which consist of namely Mahila Udyam Nidhi
which is treated as an exclusive scheme with the main aim of providing equity to women
entrepreneurs (Rao, 2014). On the other hand, the Mahila Vikas Nidhi is another scheme
that offers developmental assistance for empowerment of women for persuading income
generating activities to ensure better financial assistance and support for women.
 Co-operative scheme: The women cooperative scheme were formed with the help of
women within the agro based industries such as dairy farming, animal husbandry,
horticulture, poultry etc. with the full of financial support from the government. The
government of India along with The Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD)
of India are aim at providing and creating new co-operative schemes for women in order
to provided better financing for cooperative milk producers' unions along with leading
and implementing the "Support to Training and Employment Programme" (STEP) for
women in order to make them more financially independent and capable for emplaning
there growth and development. There are various co-operative schemes like Women
Dairy Cooperatives (WDCs), Women Thrift Groups (WTGs) and Women's Dairy
Cooperative Leadership Programme (WDCLP) that are launched by government of India
and are aim and focusing at empowerment of women through leading financial and non-
financial support and aid for women (Gurnani, 2016).
 Private organisations: Despite of all the other schemes and associations there are
several kinds of NGOs, self help group, voluntary organisations, individual enterprises
and institutions from the rural as well as urban area are being developed with eth support
of government. They are mainly focussing toward assisting the women entrepreneurs
within setting up their business in effective manner and be able to learn skills regarding
the ways in which they can operate their business operations smoothly.
Further, as per the information provided by Rekha Balakrishnan, 2019, various schemes are
initiated and launched by government of India for leading women’s empowerment which ranges
from community engagement till welfare and education of the girl child in India along with
leading better women safety and many other growth aspects to empower women in more
effective and better ways. In order to ensure and lead empowerment of women the government
45

and public sector of India needs to pay more attention and important role to enable welfare of
women in various sector and providing them enhanced education scheme and leverage women to
empower women to become more independent in their lives (Jewitt, 2019). An evaluation of
some of these schemes and programmes that are lead by government of India to ensures better
empowerment and development of women in India are discussed below:
Mahila-E-Haat- This scheme and programme is launched by the government of India
Under the purview and guidance of the Ministry of Women and Child Development which get
launched and implemented in 2016. Mahila-E-Haat is basically a bilingual online marketing
platform that aim at leveraging technology and ensuring easy access and reach of latest
technology for aspiring women entrepreneurs, NGOs, self-help groups and other organisation to
ensure more effective showcase of products and services generated and created by women in
order to enhance their growth and success (Lahoti and Swaminathan, 2016). Thus, it can be
evaluated that this Mahila-E-Haat programme of Indian government is paying a vital role in
empowering Women through facilitating a direct and easy contact and interaction among the
vendors and buyers along with ensuring a better advocacy, training, sensitisation, packing
facility and soft intervention workshop for helping and supporting women. Further, this Mahila-
E-Haat scheme leads and offer an effective web based approach for empowering women through
leading a platform which offers a more easy sign-in process and convenient and secure mode of
payment to empower women with higher sales of their product through the help of easy to handle
mobile app (Kapoor, 2014).
Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana- it is a vital scheme and programme launched by government
of India on 22 January, 2015 with the main aim of generating and leading enhanced awareness in
girls and their parents regarding the need and importance of education for a girl child. This,
Programme is focused on improving the efficiency of welfare services for the girls and women
through lading a check and decline in Child sex ratio and also consists of building of a gender-
biased sex-selective eliminations to ensures equal opportunity and an atmosphere of fairness for
girl child (Torri and Martinez, 2014).. The Beti Bachao Beti Padhao Yojana is being
implemented by the national campaign of the government of India and it is mainly focussed on
multi-sectoral action in the 100 selected districts of India which are having low in CSR and
covering all states and UTs of India. Further, this women empowerment scheme is joint initiative
of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Human Resource Development
46

and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare that aim and focused at providing education to all
girl child with the main motto of making girls and women more independent and capable of
leading self decisions through the power of education (Laha and Kuri, 2014)..
Mahila Shakti Kendra- this is also a vital step taken by the government of India for leading
enhanced empowerment of women through leading skill development, digital literacy and better
health and nutrition for women. This programme of Mahila Shakti Kendra was launched in 2017
and aim at providing an interface for women especially for those who resides in rural areas to
easily approach and reach the government to avail and get their entitlements through the way of
training and capacity building to have better skill and abilities to work more independently and
become more financially stable. The Mahila Shakti Kendras is working through the help of
community engagement where some student volunteers are send and focused in the 115 most
backward districts of India to ensure better women empowerment and lead an effective way of
training and skill development to make these women more independent and confident to work
through digital literacy and employment. (Godinho Filho, Ganga and Gunasekaran, 2016). The
main objective of Mahila Shakti Kendras scheme is too envisaged to work for empowerment of
women at various level which comprises of national level, state level, district level and block
level to provide technical support and assistance to give a foothold to women empowerment
schemes. Mahila Shakti Kendras is a multi-dimensional programme of the government which
consists of providing training and capacity building for leading empowerment of rural women
through ensuring block level intervention.
Under Mahila Shakti Kendras at national level, the domain based expert’s provide support
for implementation of centric schemes to strengthen the conceptual and programmatic of
programme in order to give training and capacity building to enhance understanding for
empowerment of women. At the state level, the State Resource Centre for Women (SRCW)
under the State level the Governments (Department of WCD/Social Welfare) aim at providing
technical assistance towards leading women empowerment through implementing programmes,
laws and schemes meant for women with the help of effective coordination at the State/UT level
which are cross-cutting and multi-disciplinary in to reach women beneficiaries (Richardson,
2018). At block and district level the Mahila Shakti Kendras consist of training and education
centres where required skills and awareness is created in women to make them able to work to
47

become more self sufficient and competent which ensures better empowerment of women in
India at rural level.
Working Women Hostel- The another issues faced by women while become empowered
and self independent is related with their accommodation thus, the Indian government is playing
a vital role in overcoming this issue of accommodation by the means of their schemes and
programmes which is providing hostel facility to working women at easy terms and conditions.
The Government of India has launched the working women hostel schemes which ensures easy
availability of a safe and more convenient accommodation for working family especially for the
women along with providing all needed facilities for their children at various location in urban,
semi urban and rural areas of India (Cherayi and Jose, 2016). This programme of working
women hostel consist of a scheme which assist and led to construction of new hostels along with
funding for expansion of existing hostel. Further, under this programme women hostels are
available for all working women whose gross income does not cross the monthly income of
50000 rupees in a metropolitan city and around 3500 rupees per month in any other location.
Further, a provision is also made regarding the rent which should not exceed the 15 percent of
total emoluments or gross salary if the women in case of single bedrooms hostel where as 10
percent in case of a double bedroom hostel and the limit for rent in case of dormitories is around
7.5 percent. Thus, the main focus and aim of this schemes for working women hostel is to
provide a safe and easily assessable and convenient accommodation for women to lead and
ensure their better development and empowerment in urban and semi-urban areas also (Singh
and Gaur, 2018).
The another provision of this working women hostel consists of this scheme shall be
made equally available for all working women without leading and facilitating any kind of
distinction and discrimination o the basis of their caste, religion, marital status or any other form
of distinction along with other subjects and provisional norms prescribed under the scheme. The
main emphasis and focus of working women hostel is mainly on the projects which assisted
under this scheme are basically meant for the working women and also includes those women
who are under training for job but such hostels are subject to the some other condition as the
hostel taken up and occupied by women under training and other form of internship or trainees
should not occupy more than 30% of the total capacity the hostel (Tomšič, Bojnec and Simčič,
2015). Still a provision is also made that if trainees are occupying such hostel then they must be
48

accommodated in the hostels only when the adequate numbers of working women are not
available. Apart from this, under this scheme of working women hostels the children of the
working women could also stay up to the age of 18 years for girls and up to the age of 5 years for
boys may be also be accommodated in such hostels with their mothers. Further, the charged
taken from the women in form of fees charged for day care of their children should not be more
than and exceed the 5 % of their total emoluments or the actual expenditure made on day care,
which ever be less than in these two options (Rao, 2014). Till now under this scheme of working
women hostel around 890 hostels have been sanctioned and more than 66,000 numbers of
women are being befitted by this scheme. Thus, it can be evaluated that this programme lead by
government of India plays a vital and crucial role in solving the issue of accommodation for
working women thus lead an important factor and aspect for more effective empowerment and
development of women in India (Gurnani, 2016)(Jewitt, 2019).
Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP)- This scheme was
launched and implemented by the government to set up and provide need skills to women in
order to empower them to take up some gainful jobs and employment for their better
development and enhancement in there sufficiency in society. Under this scheme of government
of India, right competencies and training is provided to women to lead better competencies and
skills in women to make them entrepreneurs and sufficient guidance is also provided to come up
with and start and new business and start –ups. This, scheme of Support to Training and
Employment Programme for Women (STEP) is open and available for all girls and women who
are above the age of 16 and is run by and training is granted through government headed
institution and organisations including the NGOs (Chant and McIlwaine, 2015). This scheme of
Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP) is launched during the
year 1986-87 by the ministry of women and child development as a part of central sector scheme
which aim at providing skills and abilities to women which enhance there employability in order
to make these women self employed and successful entrepreneur.
The Scheme for Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP)is
intended to benefit women who are in the age group of 16 years and above across the whole
country and it also consist of the grant and funding by the government of India for empowerment
and development of women (Arora and Aggarwal, 2018). These grants and funding under
Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP) scheme is mainly given
49

and provided to government institution and affiliated organisation which also consist of NGOs.
The assistance provided under the this scheme of Support to Training and Employment
Programme for Women (STEP) will be made available in all sector for imparting skills in
women which are mainly related with the development of employability and entrepreneurship
skills (Desai, 2020). Further, the training and skill development consist of Agriculture, Food
Processing, Handlooms, Horticulture, Tailoring, Stitching, Embroidery, Zari etc, but are not only
limited to these common aspects and also consists of Handicrafts and more digital training which
consist of Computer & IT enable services. Further, an enhanced emphasis on the better
development of soft skills like effective communication and time management is also lead by
this Support to Training and Employment Programme for Women (STEP) scheme for leading
effective work place associated with leading better spoken English to build a better
employability and entrepreneur in sector of Gems & Jewellery, Travel & Tourism, Hospitality
(Sharaunga, Mudhara and Bogale, 2015). Thus, it has been observed that Support to Training and
Employment Programme for Women reflects a viable and important role and contribution of
government in leading more effective women empowerment by the means of developing
employability skills and entrepreneurs that makes them more self sufficient and independent.
Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana- This scheme of government of India falls under the ambit of
the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme which is basically a back-up saving scheme of government
for girl child to lead women empowerment from the early life of girl child (Yawar and Seuring,
2018). The Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana is basically a small deposit scheme started by the
government of India which is exclusively meant for the girl child. The main focus of this
Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana of government is to mitigating and reduces the financial challenges
and risk for girls and ensures a saving option which meet education expenses and other financial
needs of a girl child. The other provisions of Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana consists of account
opening facility for girls that can be opened any time after the birth of a girl up to she turns up to
be 10 years of age with a minimum deposit amount of 250 rupees and a maximum amount of 1.5
lacks can be deposited or saved by parents of these girls during one ongoing financial year
(Chawinga and Chipeta, 2017).
Further, as per the information provided by the Sunil Dhawan. 2019, under this scheme of
Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, the account can be opened in name of a girl in any post office or
other authorised branches of Indian commercial banks. This account will remain active for the
50

next 21 years from the date of its opening or till the marriage date of a girl after she turned up to
18 years. Beside this, the partial withdraw up to the 50% of savings is also allowed to meet the
higher education expenses of a girls after she attains the age of 18 years. A high interest rate is
offered on the savings made under the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana which is time to time notified
by the government which is compounded ad credited in the account on yearly basis. Thus, it can
be evaluated that this Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana plays a crucial role in meeting and solving the
financial challenge for a girl and leads to empowerment of women through meeting their
education expenses in more easy and effective way (Agarwal, 2020).
Recommendation for women empowerment
According to information presented by P. Srivastava, 2020, empowerment is consider to
be the process through which the powerless or disempowered people changes their circumstances
and begin to control on their lives. This results into the change in balance of power, living on
conditions and relationship. In this women empowerment is usually defined as he equal status to
women, freedom and opportunity to develop themselves. That means equipping women to
become economically independent, positive esteem and self-reliant for enabling them to face any
kind of difficult situation. The empowered women are required to participate within the process
of decision making. There are several actions that can be taken into consideration for
empowering women such as,
Political empowerment of women: Within India the ministry of Human Resources
Development and National Commission for Women are working for safeguarding the legal and
right entitlement of women. The 73rd and 74th amendment 1993, the constitution of India provide
special power to women for their reserve seats i.e. 33 per cent. This in turn allow the women to
become a part of political environment of the country and try to work toward providing women
right which they deserves as male counterpart.
For the empowerment of women within India government has taken up several initiative
such as by passing the National Policy for the empowerment of women. For the beneficiaries of
women the government adopted programs such as National credit Fund for Women, Food and
Nutrition Board (FNB), Information and Mass Education (IME) etc. these are also supported a
lot n development of women. But apart from this, there are certain area where women still
finding issues in becoming empowered the reason behind this is that there is not much awareness
about the rights they have and support that they can get from government. So in order to ensure
51

full empowerment of women within India it become very much crucial for the government and
other authority who are responsible for women empowerment that is to create more and more
awareness about the women empowerment, its importance and right that a women have at her
side.
Social empowerment of women: The empowerment of women is heavily depend over
several variables such as geographical location, social status, educational status. There are
several policies that has been created in order to empower women and are exist at national, local
as well as state level within many sectors such as education, health, gender based violence,
political participation as well as economic opportunity. But the major issue is that there remains
a huge difference between the policy advancement as well as actual; practices at the community
level. One among the key factor can be represented as implementation of laws as well as policies
to address the discrimination, violence against women at community level, economic
disadvantage and is largely the patriarchal structure which governs the community as well as
household in much of India. As the women and girls are restricted to the mobility, less access to
education, health facilities and lower decision-making power it is quite difficult access for
getting empowered. Hence the government must focuses toward promoting equality among
people despite of their education status, economic backwardness etc. so that each women get a
chance or opportunity to perform its role effectively and be able to get economically and socially
empowered to take her own decision and earn livelihood.
This is so because the women at rural area faces more inequality as compare to women
lives in urban setting at much higher rate and in all sphere of life. The women in urban area
mainly enjoys more access to economic opportunity, education and health and also experience
less domestic violence as compare to female lives in rural area. Therefore more focused must be
exerted toward improving the condition of women lives in rural area as they are more controlled
by the males as well a s their families which in turn restrict them to get opportunity to become
something and get access to economy which they can used in order to empower themselves and
become financially stable and independent.
Economic empowerment of women: India is considered to be one of the fastest growing
economy with women mainly belongs to middle class family are increasingly entering with the
workforce. The urban cities like Bengaluru, Delhi etc. are seen to be an influx of younger women
from the semi urban as well as rural part of the country, lives along and redefine themselves. The
52

women within workforce are varies from state to sate which present 21 per cent within Delhi, 23
per cent within Punjab and 65 per cent in Manipur, Chhattisgarh it is 76 per cent. The diversity
of women’s economic opportunity among the state is due to cultural, ethnic and religious
diversity for each state (Richardson, 2018). The women are being encouraged to work within
certain regions like Manipur, Chhattisgarh etc. but ion the other side the northern region such as
Delhi, Punjab etic. Are lag behind the gender equality measurement due to greater gender-based
violence. The main reason behind is the law embedded within Hindu and Sharita civil codes
which continue to marginalise women within household and largely community. The rural
women particularly of lower caste mainly remain under lower literacy rate and hence do not
require to have capacity to negotiate pay or contract and hence they are encouraged to get
engaged within the unorganised sector, self-employment or within small scale industry.
The self-help group are highly practical model for the economic as well as social mobility
by the government and NGO. It mainly provides opportunity to women for managing the loans
and savings which can be used by the member for various need. These are mainly promoted for
the social change among the members as well as community at large. So government must
focuses toward the establishment of such group at several part of the country so that each women
get awareness about it and get access to its services in order to be able to start up their source of
income even at small level.
53

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