Women Empowerment: MSME Schemes for the Benefit of Women Entrepreneurs

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Bringing empowerment and autonomy to the women of India has become the need of time with changing homemaker to entrepreneur position of women in the society. Improvement of their political, social, economic and health status is significant, given their increasing participation in the National development scenarios.

Witnessing a phenomenal rise in women entrepreneurship, The Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, popularly known as the incubator of entrepreneurship of the nation, has rolled out various schemes to engine the growth of emerging Women Entrepreneurs in the country.

Udyam Sakhi – A portal to Nurture Women Entrepreneurship

The Ministry of MSME, in 2018, launched Udyam Sakhi, a network for nurturing social entrepreneurship by creating business models revolving around low-cost products and services that would resolve social inequities.

The portal caters to the needs of around 8 million Indian women running their own businesses through the means of entrepreneurship learning tools, incubation facility, training programs for fundraising, providing mentors, one-on-one investor meet, provide market survey facility and technical assistance.
Udyam Sakhi provides women entrepreneurs assistance for Cluster Development Programmes while also networking them with events and international business promotion schemes.

Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP)

Women entrepreneurs have set up around 1.38 lakh projects under the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) Scheme since its inception till 2019. As per an MSME report, the projects set up by women entrepreneurs are about 30% of total projects set up under PMEGP.

PMEG scheme, implemented by Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) covers women entrepreneurs under a Special Category, entitling them to 25% and 35% subsidies for the project set up in urban and rural areas respectively. For women beneficiaries, the self contribution is only 5% of the project cost while for the general category it is 10%.

Moreover, during 2016-17 and 2017-18, under the Khadi Programme of KVIC, women entrepreneurs have set up 30437 projects for which margin money of 85,305 lakh Rupees have been disbursed.

Entrepreneurship Skill Development Programme (ESDP) for skill Upgradation of Women Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship Development Programmes are being organized by the government to nurture the talent of youth by enlightening them on various aspects of industrial activity required for setting up MSEs wherein almost 20% of the total targeted of ESDPs are conducted exclusively for women.

These EDPs are generally conducted in ITIs, Polytechnics and other technical institutions, where skill is available to motivate them towards self-employment.

Subsequently, in order to spur further growth of entrepreneurial initiative among women, leading financial institutions in India, including nationalized, private and public sector banks provide MSME Loans for startups and businesses funding support for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises in terms of capital for enterprise growth and business expansion that cater to this emerging segment such as:

Stree Shakti Package from SBI, which provides an Interest rate of 11.20% onwards (p.a) to women entrepreneurs.

Mahila Udyam Nidhai (MUN) Scheme offered under the Small Industrial Development Bank of India (SIDBI) encourages and empowers women entrepreneurs and promotes women Entrepreneurship by providing financial assistance at concessional interest rates. The funding provided by MUN Scheme can be used by MSMEs to undertake service, manufacturing and production-related activities.

Bhartiya Mahila Bank offers women entrepreneurs a wide range of loans to help them set up new or expand their existing businesses. The Shringaar loan targets women interested in setting up beauty parlours and the Annapurna loan scheme provides financial support to women interested in establishing a food catering business for selling lunch packs.