Low risk-taking ability and lack of funds keep women from starting their own ventures.
Madhura Chatrapathy’s saying from two decades ago formed the mood of Wednesday’s seminar on women entrepreneurs. When introduced as a ‘woman entrepreneur’ way back in 1988, she objected, saying, “Call me an entrepreneur. They can see I am a woman.” Chatrapathy is the founder president of Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Karnataka (Awake), which organised a seminar on Multiplying Women Entrepreneurs as Notable Economic Force.
“Though we have a large base of over 3,500 women entrepreneurs, neither Karnataka nor the country can boast of women entrepreneurs as significant contributor to the employment revenue,” rued Chatrapathy.
She stated that despite repeated requests, there is no organised data on the number of women entrepreneurs the country has. “It is surprising that even in the IT-savvy state, there is no mechanism to capture women entrepreneurs. I am sure there are many doing a great job in some corner of the state, but unfortunately they have no recognition,” she said.
A UN report states that in most countries, the number of women entrepreneurs is about half of that of men. According to 1995 Government of India SSI Census, women enterprises account for only 7.5% of the 45,00,000 small-scale industries.
Factors, such as low risk-taking ability and unavailability of funds, contribute to small-scale churn of women entrepreneurs. They are likely to establish maximum business size thresholds beyond which they prefer not to expand.
Chief guest Murugesh R Nirani, minister for medium and large industries, said the new industry policy, which is valid till 2014, encourages entrepreneurship and gives special attention to women by offering assistance of up to `5 lakh towards start-up costs.
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