Rural Women Owned Micro Enterprises: A Stepping Stone for Promoting Enterprises

Abstract

Self-employment is the best employment and entrepreneurship is the most important mode of self employment. A holistic programme covering all aspects of self employment was introduced by the Government of India in 1999, which is popularly known as Swaranjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana [SGSY].Generation of self- employment for the poor in rural areas is one of the important components of anti- poverty and rural development strategy adopted by the Ministry of Rural Development. SGSY is a single cell self- employment programme for rural poor aimed at establishment of large number of micro enterprises. Women's development is directly related with national development. The effective management and development of women's resources, their abilities, interests, skills and other potentialities are of paramount importance in human resources development. Rural women entrepreneurship play a catalytic role in activating the factors of production leading to an over all economic development in India. The SGSY scheme unlike the previous scheme could make a difference either because it is integrated and able to promote grass root level entrepreneurship. The study aims at analyzing the development of rural women entrepreneurship through SGSY assisted Self Help Groups and to find out how far the self- employment programme in the rural areas inculcated the spirit of entrepreneurship among the grass root and thereby empowering poor women.