WHAT WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS ARE UP AGAINST

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Women entrepreneurs in India experience the following bottlenecks, which are against their growth and freedom:

Social Programming
Most women (especially from rural and semi urban areas) are taught from the childhood that the rough and tumble of doing business is the domain of men.

A Systemic Bias
Union leaders use tougher pressure tactics; police don't take business related harassment complaints seriously; bankers likely to take budding woman entrepreneur less seriously.

Middlemen
Many co operatives and start ups run by women do not have resources to market their products. They end up being exploited by the middlemen.

Corruption
Thanks to exposure, men are inherently at ease giving a bribe & getting an electricity connection, for instance. Women have a problem dealing with bribe-seekers.

Lack of Mentoring
Rural women & the urban poor have no means of training themselves to do business. Yet, within turn out to be most enterprising.

Lack of Government Support
There are simply not enough schemes to train women as entrepreneurs, or entrepreneurship schools where they could update their knowledge.

But, presently some of the abovesaid areas have been improving to encourage women entrepreneurs and hope a comfortable atmosphere will emerge in near future.

How things can change for Women Entrepreneurs

Gender Budgeting
Gender is the socially and culturally constructed roles for women and men. A gender responsive budget would allocate funds to move the society towards equality. This would mean more money to train women entrepreneurs.

More e-governance
When every process in the life cycle of a business like registration of the firm & bidding for projects is made e friendly, women would have an equal footing.

Rural programmes
A large number of women in rural areas are entrepreneurs in their own right. They need schools where they can get basic education and marketing know how at one place.

Reservation in engineering
It is considered the most male dominated area of work, apart from the armed forces. Women simply cannot build roads, we continue to say to this day.

Global School
An institution comparable with IIM- Ahmedabad, to be run by the likes of Kiran Majumdar Shaw, Indra Nooyi and Chanda Kochchar. It should aim to identify and train women for big business.

S.SHOBANA

Source: The Economic Times dt. 06.01.2013