In its recently announced MSME policy, Telangana has taken remarkable strides in the encouragement of women entrepreneurs. With the latest statistics, the state boasts of 58,644 registered women entrepreneurs on Centre’s Udyam portal. This basically translates to 3.1 women entrepreneurs for every 1,000 women in Telangana, which is home to over 1.88 crore women.
Telangana Among Top 3 for Women-Led MSMEs
The NITI Aayog report on women entrepreneurship puts Telangana at number three, with state-of-affairs in October 2022. Women-owned MSMEs were estimated to be 7.85%. West Bengal was leading at 23.42%, and Tamil Nadu showed 10.37%.
MSME Women-Owned in India
Nationally, women-owned MSMEs accounted for 20.37 percent of all MSMEs with 12.39 million women-led enterprises out of the total 60.84 million MSMEs. This, however, means that most of these women-owned enterprises are small and are mostly categorised in the micro enterprise group and most are one-person enterprises. Only 17 percent of such businesses employed workers, and 95 percent of those employed have five or fewer. The report continues to indicate that the larger the enterprise the fewer women-owned businesses are involved.
Women Entrepreneurs’ Challenges
Dr. Anupama Panduru, Chairperson of the CII’s Indian Women Network (IWN) Telangana, opines that 93.6% of women entrepreneurs in the state are in nano and micro segments. While there are many women entrepreneurs in manufacturing, several challenges have to be met, including high cost of entry into the business and requirements like subsidies, worker accommodation, and skilled labour.
Viability is a Problem
Despite access to finance and general improvement in the outcome, sustaining a business remains a challenge for women entrepreneurs themselves, noted K. Rama Devi, Chairperson of ALEAP WE-HUB. Most of these women led ventures suffer from a lack of marketing strength, so they are unable to grow and prosper in such a competitive market.
