ROLE OF MSME IN WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO ‘KUDUMBASHREE’

Commerce

MSME’s have come to occupy a pivotal position in the economic dynamism. They aim at balanced regional development, equitable distribution of income and wealth and mobilizing small savings for productive channels. Government reports on MSME sector claim that this sector alone has recorded a consistent 8% growth from 2002-2012, with a workforce of more than 60 million people, making it the second largest sector after agriculture. Women-led entrepreneurship has a key role to play in this entrepreneurial wave that is engulfing our country by contributing not only to economic development, but also to the development of the family which in turn, brings forth the development of the society as well as that of the nation. In India, women enterprises constitute 13.72% of MSME’s according to the Fourth All India Census of MSMEs. The Department of Local Self-Government in the state of Kerala brought out one of the largest projects for women’s development in Asia, ‘Kudumbashree’, with a view to chart out new meaning and possibilities for their economic development and citizen centric governance. This paper looks into the role of micro enterprises in women entrepreneurship by taking the specific case of micro enterprises functioning under Kudumbashree units.

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