Triggering Entrepreneurship among Women in Urban Informal Sector Economic Necessities or Opportunities

Abstract

A country's economic progress is found to be positively correlated with the rise in number and quality of its entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur as the determining factor in the creation of new wealth in society has since long back recognized (Schumpeter, 1934; McClelland, 1961, 1985 Guilder1984; Drucker, 1985), but Akhouri (1989) (see in Dhillon, 1991) foresaw that 1990's as the decade of entrepreneurial explosion in India and stated that "Entrepreneurship is going to be the focal point of development in the next two Five Year Plans. Be it the problem of unemployment, income generation, decreasing GNP, regional imbalances in industrial progress, entrepreneurship seems to be the potential answer". Entrepreneurship is an important facet of industrial growth and development of a nation. It is the backbone of a nation that sets its eyes on maximizing its performance in every field. Entrepreneurs are the persons who have the ability to discover, create, or invent and exploit them to the benefit of the society, which in turns brings prosperity to the innovator and the organization. From the social and micro-economic perspective, it is held that the economic development of any nation is a direct function of the number of high quality innovators and entrepreneurs it supplies (Ojha, Twari and Pani, 1998). The spirit of entrepreneurship brings about enthusiasm, persistence and the ability to seek -entrepreneurial opportunities that lead to success. A nation's ability to generate a steady stream of business opportunities can only come about when its people take to entrepreneurial activities. Entrepreneurs are essentially the engines of growth for a nation. In addition, today's world with its burgeoning population offers limited avenues of employment. This makes entrepreneurship all the more necessary for self-employment and small-business.