Women empowerment with entrepreneurship: A study of entrepreneurial empowerment initiatives in the country

Women have been always considered to be the source of inspiration and strength for the growth of any individual and thus contributing directly or indirectly towards the prosperity of any nation. They are the major participant in the population too. Dominance of men and the blockage of societal traditions have always existed has a hurdle in the path of their personal and mental development, especially in traditional countries like India. Women face the chronic problems of traditions, lack of exposure, poverty, lack of guidance and absence of regulatory bodes. But, now, since liberalization, steps have been taken to liberalize and cater to the needs of women. A major step taken in this direction is empowering women by training and developing the entrepreneurial skills in them to educate them and make them self reliant and independent- both financially and socially. Many national and international organizations viz. OECD, UNIDO, APEC, UNCTAD, etc are now working swiftly towards uplifting this sector of the population that was always suppressed with some or the other reason. In India, one arm of the Government of India-The Ministry of Women and Child Development-plays an indispensable role in this regard. They, under their large umbrella of objectives of women empowerment and child development, run various programs like Support to Training and Employment Program for Women, Working Women’s Hostel, The National Credit Fund for Women, etc which works on various grounds like training and development, providing facilities, financial upgradation, etc, respectively. Another body working with the same purpose is MSME with plans like TREAD, CDP etc. Large number of private NGOs too are contributing their efforts towards this common cause. This paper focuses to study the performance of few select programs under The Ministry of Women and Child Development, MSME and private NGOs and suggests some additional measures to overcome the existing and unattended set of issues.