Women Entrepreneurs In India: Challenges And Opportunities
In this era of globalisation, Indian women are playing a magnificent role in the progress of their country and trying to increase and raise the real per capita income. In rural areas, women are helping in agricultural work with the male family members. They are not earning money in that time but they are saving money. Women's entrepreneurship has been recognized during the last decade as a new jobs and success for themselves and others also. By providing this, they are giving different ideas, jobs and solutions to management, organization and business problems as well as women exploitation. Although the number of women entrepreneurs are very less but they are doing their best. Because of the male dominated society, women entrepreneurs are largely neglected in normal life of society and basically a woman and her family members have a concept for job to her as a teacher, tutor or government officer/ worker. They are unable to accept them as R&D incharge, IAS/PCS/CID, business lady, factory maker, engineer, etc. But today if we see the backside of mirror, then we will find successful women entrepreneurs. We can collect the full profile of women entrepreneurs, their demographic information barriers to start up, growth and problems to perform their duties in family as well as in society. The biggest and better example of self employment is Lizzat Papad. Women are doing very well in the field of business but its small scale business. Thus, we can quote these small business ladies as entrepreneurs.Most specifically for women's entrepreneurship, we should try to change the interests and attitude of women and society. We feel that many women entrepreneurs are busy in retailing and simple manufacturing with very little growth potential or they are just focusing on education and health care. If women entrepreneurs will come in the picture of business, Indian society will increase its social capital with social, political, legal, cultural and business values. In my research paper, I emphasized on the challenges and opportunities for Indian women entrepreneurs of Meerut city of Uttar Pradesh, India. Individual, social and economic development can easily made through proper human resource management. Our Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi is focusing on self employment through start up programme, skill development programme, Pradanmantri Kaushal Kendra training centres, social welfare department and banks. He emphasized on utilize the Indian man power properly to control mass poverty and widespread unemployment. Development of entrepreneurship has to be in top priority of Indian leaders and elites. Dr. Sudha Pandey (D.Litt. Member Public Service Commisssion, Uttaranchal) wrote in Foreword of Zainab Rahman's book i.e. Women and Society (2005) "Women have had to struggle continuously to establish their identity as independent individuals in society. It is essential that besides enhancing their physical, mental and other capabilities, on an equal footing as men, they should be able to make their own decisions, have equal access to opportunities in different fields and be looked upon as 'persons' not 'objects'" Zainab Rahman (2005:15) confirmed it in his book that 'India is a typical example where equal status and rights have been granted since independence and a small number of educated women have achieved equality in various fields but by and large, women are still discriminated against in myriad ways, exploited and subjugated. Now a day's every profession is giving opportunity to both genders. Now fight is to show their capability, good communication skill, ideal management, progressive attitude, innovative nature, open views, commands the mass etc. Women are a good manger since their starting. But they are ignored. Now women are playing their vital and impressive role to confirm this. Women empowerment is the first step to organize every field of society either family or any corporate sector. In this context Anita Stephen (2006: 5 6) said that 'Empowerment of women in the context of knowledge societies is understood as building the ability and skills of women to gain insight of actions and issues in the external environment which influence them, and to build their capacity to get involved and voice their concerns in these external processes, and make informed decisions. It entails building up of capacities of women to overcome social and institutional barriers, and strengthening their participation in the economic and political processes for an overall improvement in their quality of lives' Women Entrepreneurs In India: Challenges And Opportunities DOI: 10.9790/0837 2204050109 www.iosrjournals.org 2 Page Indian society is basically based on cultural harmony and perfect division of labour. It's dominated by man due to the outdoor work and overall security. We think that women will be safe in four walls of a house. But it is not possible or right from the starting of society till the end. A country could progress only when both genders (male and female) work together, eat together, sit together, perform their duties together and be progressive together. Prof. M.B Shukla (2007:3) explained in his research paper that society and government can play its important role to develop entrepreneurship. Development of entrepreneurial class is a direct function of ethical value system of the society concerned. Max Weber opined that the spirit of rapid industrialization depends upon a nationalised technology, acquisition of money and its rationale use for productivity and multiplication of money .These elements are generally governed by specific value orientation of individuals like the tendency of acquisition and rational attitude towards action which are generated by ethical value. Max Weber further view that there is positive relationship between protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism .in the Indian context, Hindu Vaisya, Jain and juda are quite effective in developing and entrepreneurial class. Actually, entrepreneurship develops rapidly in those societies .where ethical values provide independent capacity of decision making. According to Tiwari and Tiwari (2007: preface) 'women are the nuclei of the nation .they are the real builder and moulder of a nations destiny. The position and the status of women in any society in an index of its civilisation and progress. Indian women are considered as source of power or SHAKTI since mythological times. Women who constitute 46.5 per cent of total population and 28.9 percent of work force are out of total female population only 9 percent of entrepreneurs. The rural women, at the same time constitute nearly 77 percent of the total female population and play a significant role in agriculture, allied sectors and artisanal activities. The population of women entrepreneurship necessitates to remove social, economical and educational constrain. Through more than half a century has passed after independence, development of women entrepreneurship has not been rapidly achieved as the other measures of development. I. WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INDIA After independence, several legislative acts were passed like the special act of 1954,the Hindu marriage act of 1955 and the Hindu succession act of 1956 the hindu adoption and maintenance act of 1956 ,and the dowry prohibition act, 1961, the maternity benefits act ,1961 the equal remuneration act, 1976 and the criminal law amendment act, 1983 These acts have been introduced to remove constrains hindering the progress of women. Bajpai Mishra (2007) present their project in the form of a book i.e. Women Empowerment and Reproductive Behaviour. They we gave their strong recommendations for women empowerment in india.Two recommendations are relevant to this study Concept of women empowerment in Indian context has to be different from that of western countries. Women empowerment must be conceptualized to abolish both. 'Parivar Liptata' and 'Parivar Muktata' and ensure 'Parivar Nishthata' in both males and females. Women empowerment is a social responsibility. The movement launched for this should not hesitate to take cooperation also of males to reap out the gains of decline in gender sensitization in males, spontaneously occurring in due course of time. Sethi and Singhal (2015:6 7) wrote in his paper about Social Entrepreneurship. They explained, "Social entrepreneurship is generally referred to as a multi disciplinary access as this pertains to a variety of areas in human and professional life of an individual. This concept is undertaken for those individuals or business organizations that went to find explanations for social obstacles with the help of business craft and know how .Social entrepreneurs are more interested in taking into consideration what they have done for the society rather than the profit that they have earned these ventures. These social organizations customarily undertake to facilitate wide ranging civil, developmental and ecological objectives usually linked with the noon profit establishments. " In this research paper they quoted the views of Christian Seelos and Johanna Mair. Christian Seelous and Johanna Mair in their article titled "Social Entrepreneurship: Creating New Business Models to Serve the Poor" state that the term "Social Entrepreneurship"(SE) is used to refer to the rapidly growing number of organizations that have created models for efficiently catering to basic human needs that existing markets and institutions have failed to satisfy .Social Entrepreneurship combines the resourcefulness of traditional entrepreneurship with a mission to change society. In this era of globalisation, Indian women are playing a magnificent role in the progress of their country and trying to increase and raise the real per capita income. In rural areas, women are helping in agricultural work with the male family members. They are not earning money in that time but they are saving money. In urban areas, especially in