Women Entrepreneurship in India vis-à-vis Punjab-Status, Motivation and Challenges

The economic development of a nation is largely sparked by its enterprising spirit. In India, women constitute around 48 percent of the population but their participation in the economic activities is only 34 per cent. Women entrepreneurship has been recognized as an important untapped source of economic growth. In this backdrop, the present study was carried out with the objectives to study the status of establishments owned by women entrepreneurs in Punjab vis-a-vis India along with motivating factors and challenges faced by them. The study revealed that at national level, the women owned establishments formed 13.76 per cent of the total enterprises while for Punjab, it was only 7.33 per cent at the state level and about merely 1.38 per cent of total women establishments at the national level. The district Sangrur had the highest number of rural women establishments (11.3%) while Jalandhar had the highest (18.9%) urban enterprises. More than three-fourth establishments were operated without hired workers. Number of women establishments involved in agricultural activities constituted about one-fourth of the total number of establishments owned by women in Punjab as compared to about 34 per cent in India. About 54 per cent of the establishments were rural in Punjab and 65 per cent in India. Maximum of the women establishments were working throughout the year. Self-finance emerged out to be the major source of finance in both Punjab (85%) and India (79%). Women faced different socio-cultural, production related challenges amongst which finance from institutional sources and marketing competitiveness emerged out to the major ones. Renaissance of entrepreneurship is the need of the hour and this is possible only by taking effective steps to provide institutional financial support, entrepreneurial awareness, orientation and skill development programmes along with creation of nurturing environment with family support that motivates and supports women entrepreneurs.