Ushabai, 32, from Karmad village in Jamner block of Jalgaon district, Maharashtra, lived in acute poverty and hardship along with her husband, their two children and an extended family. Her husband, Madhukar Patil, cultivated one hectare of land but the income generated from that was not enough to sustain the family.

Then, International Development Enterprises (India), a not-for-profit enterprise committed to providing long-term solutions to poverty, hunger and malnutrition, introduced Ushabai to the drip irrigation technology. She had a drip system installed on her plot of land and the results are there for everyone to see. Now, Ushabai's day begins by setting up the drip system to cultivate vegetables. Her efforts result in a net income of Rs 40,000 (US$ 1=Rs 42). "This is unbelievable, like a dream come true," she says, as she proudly shows off her bank balance, a possibility she could not have even dreamt about earlier when their cotton crop would reap a mere Rs 15,000 a year.  

For Kanak Badatya, 43, her husband and their seven children, life as a landless rural family had never been easy. Poverty forced them to leave their village Pandi in Ganjam district of Orissa, and migrate to Jepore in Koraput district, where they leased a land for Rs 1,500 per year and began cultivation. Due to the lack of access to water, Kanak was forced to cultivate vegetables on a small portion of the land, leaving the rest fallow. The drip irrigation system came to her rescue, too. She now grows and sells vegetables such as tomatoes, onions and cabbage. The money earned is good enough for her to run her household.

These examples amply illustrate the fact that women can play an important role in building the economy through small and medium-scale enterprises, agriculture and cottage industries. With the socio-psycho-cultural and economic changes taking place in India, it is increasingly being recognized that women have vast and varied entrepreneurial talents that can be harnessed. Fortunately, several civil society groups and not-for-profit organizations are now stepping forward to work with poor women and those from the lower income groups, to promote them as entrepreneurs, cultivators, and so on.

Organisations such as Delhi-based Udyogini and Pradan, Ahmedabad-based SEWA (Self Employed Women's Association) and the Nagpur-based National Institute of Women, Child and Youth Development (NIWCD) run several programmes for women in capacity building. Women are taught how to handle market risks, procure raw material and establish marketing and credit linkages in the open markets.

At the NGO, Udyogini, women are divided into a Women Enterprise Group (WEG) and trained in grassroots management and skills. Once this is done, the NGO surveys the market and depending on the products made by a WEG and the market demand, a training programme is designed. Select women are trained as business service providers under the Business Development Services (BDS) provided by the NGO. Depending on where the market is located, the service providers, accompanied by Udyogini staff, go there and get first-hand experience about the market, which they then share with other producers.

According to Amrat Singh, Enterprise Promotion Manager, Udyogini, " Women are always more willing to learn and be trained than are their male counterparts. Whether it is training in enterprise, marketing or skills development, women are definitely easier to organize and train than are men; or the Self Help Groups (SHGs) that have a combination of men and women."

Such work is commendable considering that it is not easy for a woman to set up and run a business in a society where people are generally not comfortable with women in economic roles involving risk-taking, initiating, planning and coordinating market-oriented activities.

Also, studies on the psychological implications of women entrepreneurs in India reveal that it is considered not quite 'feminine' to become an entrepreneur, as the values of entrepreneurship are considered to be contradictory to feminine qualities. Those who do manage to break away from pre-conceived notions receive fewer rewards than their male counterparts and, at times, gain little societal approval or praise.

Singruni Devi, 24, the sole breadwinner of her family of five in Madhya Pradesh's Alakhedi village in Hoshangabad district is one such example. Besides her household chores - cleaning, cooking and sending her children off to school - she works in the family's small field, where she ploughs, sows, weeds, waters the plants and stores vegetables. In the evening, she even fetches water from the community pump, on her way back. While Singruni doesn't have even a minute to spare in the day, her 35-year-old husband, Mayaprasad, just sits at the village 'chaupal' (common meeting place) and plays cards. He, too, does not think that his wife, Singruni, does anything praiseworthy. "Itna toh karna hi chahiyey apney pariwar ke liyey" (This is the least one can do for one's family), he declares.

Singruni's is not an isolated example. Most women entrepreneurs usually have long tales of trials and hardships to narrate. However, the primary roadblock is in securing finances to start the venture. Banks and other lending institutions are usually not too keen to help women entrepreneurs and so put unrealistic and unreasonable securities on loans. According to a report by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), 1995, "Despite evidence that women's loan repayment rates are higher than men's, women still face more difficulties in obtaining credit".

However, things have changed over the past few years. Almost all nationalized banks now have different schemes - sector as well as activity-specific - that provide loans to small enterprises run by women. The government, too, has done its bit to promote women entrepreneurs by introducing various initiatives. Some of the schemes made available to women are as follows: Swa Shakti - a rural women's development and empowerment project of NABARD; Swarna Jayanthi Gram Swarozgar Yojana Scheme (SGSY) - a holistic credit-cum-subsidy self- employment programme; Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) that provides facilities for women through training and employment; and Trade-Related Entrepreneurship Assistance and Development (TREAD) scheme- designed to generate self- employment for 45,000 women in rural and urban areas.

Lack of management skills, especially in marketing and sales, is another problem area. Marketing means mobility and the confidence to make and carry out deals, both of which women have been discouraged from developing due to social conditioning. So, most have to depend on their male counterparts for marketing.

To counter this, some NGOs have come forward to train women entrepreneurs to explore the market. However, they have met with limited success. Take the case of Kanti Bai, 35, of the Gond tribe in rural Madhya Pradesh. She used to grow crops, especially Mahua, a forest product used to make country liquor. With the assistance of the NGO Udyogini she managed to get credit, train other women in the area and also get a hang of the market dynamics. But, to market her products and that of other women, she needed to visit the market as well as other organizations, frequently, which she is unable to do due to family reasons and societal pressures.

According to the Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), New Delhi, in spite of the concern to encourage women entrepreneurs in the country, the number of enterprises actually owned by women are as low as 10 per cent. This, however, does not take into account that many of the enterprises defined as being run by women are, in fact, run in their names by men who control operations and decision-making, say sources at FISME.

And the biggest stumbling blocks in the success of women entrepreneurs are public prejudice and criticism, family opposition and social constraints. But women who have overcome such limitations have been able to improve their social and economic condition. It has been found that a major portion of a rural household income, when earned by a women entrepreneur is spent on health (15 per cent) and education (4 per cent). An indication that women entrepreneurs not only contribute to the national economy but to the long-term well-being in their own households. Thus proving that women entrepreneurs of small-scale projects merely need a facilitating environment to make a difference to society at large. 

May 19, 2007

By arrangement with WFS 

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