Modi’s Startup India to give funding, incubation, more to these many women-run businesses

The number of business run or owned by women isn’t very high. (File Photo)

Credit and Finance for MSMEs: 10 per cent of the SIDBI’s Rs 10,000 crore Fund of Funds (FFS) for startups has been reserved for women-led startups, Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship RK Singh informed Rajya Sabha on Friday. The FFS set up under the Startup India scheme, in 2016 will be deployed over the 14th and 15th Finance Commission cycles. It has so far invested Rs 2,669.83 crore in 279 startups, Commerce minister Piyush Goyal had told the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. SIDBI-managed FFS contributes to the capital of SEBI-registered Alternative Investment Funds (AIF).

The number of business run or owned by women isn’t very high. According to the Sixth Economic Census (2014), only 14 per cent of Indian women run or owned businesses. Importantly, women business owners accounted for only 11 per cent of the total business owners in India, according to Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurs 2018. In fact, India was ranked at 52 out of 57 countries index that studies financial access, advancement outcomes, and ease of doing business for women.

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Singh said in order to boost women entrepreneurship in India within the Country, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship has been doing a pilot project called ‘Economic Empowerment of Women Entrepreneurs and Start-ups by Women’ in partnership with German development agency Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit. This focuses on incubation and acceleration of micro women entrepreneurs to start new ventures and scale existing ones in Assam, Rajasthan and Telangana. The programme has targetted to pilot the incubation programme with 250 women and the acceleration programme with 100 women.

MSME Ministry had last year launched portal called Udyam Sakhi for women entrepreneurs to help them with setting up and growing businesses and developing business models around low-cost products and services to resolve social inequities, Singh had told.