Women entrepreneurship: an effective and possible approach for women empowerment

In India, women have remained as a neglected section of work force. Women are lagging behind men mainly because of the relative absence of economic opportunities and minimal participation in decision making process. Educational backwardness is another major reason why women are lagging behind men. The participation of women in professional and technical work force is low. Therefore, the organizations concerned with the development of women considered empowerment of women as a solution to these problems. The specialists in economic development have considered entrepreneurship development as a possible approach to empower women. Women entry into business and entrepreneurship is traced out as an extension of their kitchen activities mainly to 3Ps, viz., Pickles, Powder and Pappad. Women in India plunged into business for both pull and push factors.  Pull factors imply the factors which encourage women to start an occupation or venture with an urge to do something independently. Push factors refers to those factors which compel women to take up their own business to tide over their economic difficulties and responsibilities. With growing awareness about business and spread of education among women over the years, women have started shifting from 3 Ps to engross to 3 modern Es, viz., Engineering, Electronics and Energy. They have excelled in these activities. Women entrepreneurs are manufacturing solar cookers in Gujarat, small foundries in Maharashtra and T.V. capacitor (Vasant Desai, 1992). Despite the best efforts of government and non- government organizations, the women entrepreneurs have been facing many problems. Vyas and Swamy (2002) and Hookimsing and Essco (2003) reported that lack of business background, mobility in business, lack of market, lack of knowledge about accounting system, inadequate personal contacts in business sector and difficulty in receiving the money from the consumer were some of the major problems faced by women entrepreneurs. It has been pointed out by many research studies that more than 70 percent of the problems faced by the women entrepreneurs are related with credit. Government and non-governmental organizations should encourage women making more focused, directed efforts and initiate specific programmes for women entrepreneurship development. The problem of co-ordination amongst the development agencies may be solved to a certain extent provided the meetings of co-ordination committees are held periodically and necessary follow up actions are taken.  The government of India should also make compulsory technical education and training for women.