Today, the Jharkhand Government, steered by CM Shri Hemant Soren, appears to be involved in strengthening rural economy and also empowering women of the state. Cheers to Jharkhand as it celebrates its Foundation Day on November 15, 2022.
To add to the progressive move, the Rural Development Department, Jharkhand implements several programmes with the objective of alleviating rural poverty through the creation of infrastructure and, also making available sustainable employment opportunities for women. It provides credit and subsidies for self-employment, employment-generating assets to the women below poverty-line, alongwith a tie-up with financial institutions.Women entrepreneurship plays a key role in the socio-economic transformation of any nation, and here too it seems to tread this path.
Here are some notable government schemes and incentives targetting women entrepreneurs.
- Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society (JSLPS) & Sakhi Mandals
Reflecting the progressive spirit, the Jharkhand State Livelihood Promotion Society (JSLPS) under the Department of Rural Development, has made efforts to ensure women entrepreneurs have the required resources at their disposal; and it works at helping them to become financially independent.
Additionally, connecting rural women with Sakhi Mandals, aims at trying to help them generate new sources of livelihood for themselves.
Credit linkage has become a powerful tool in this journey towards women empowerment. And the picture is like this – under the Jharkhand State Rural Livelihood Mission, about 32 lakh families have been linked to the Sakhi Mandal, 2.54 lakh Sakhi Mandal have been formed across the state. An amount of Rs 387 crores has been provided to one lakh Sakhi Mandals by the Community Investment Fund and a total amount of 1824 crores has been made available to many Sakhi Mandals from banks through credit linkage of Rural Livelihoods Mission.
With the financial assistance provided to women entrepreneurs through Sakhi Mandals, women are indeed, creating new success stories every day by establishing their own business.
- Jharkhand Start-up Policy 2016
This policy was introduced to build a robust business friendly ecosystem in Jharkhand. The Government of Jharkhand aims to create opportunities and improvement-driven governance, as it recognizes the fact that enabling start-up ecosystem can facilitate growth and scaling of at least 1000 direct start-ups and supports 1500 start-ups virtually, by the year 2021.
- Jharkhand State Industrial Policy, 2001
On 15th November 2000, this Policy was put in place to optimally utilise the available resources of the State in a planned manner and to mobilise the industrial development of the State. To achieve industrial growth, the districts of the State have been categorised into three categories, so as to capitalise the industrial potential through planned utilisation and development of natural and human resources and to gradually increase the employment opportunities.
http://jharkhandindustry.gov.in/polices_SIP.htm
- Jharkhand Department of Industry
Jharkhand State Industrial Policy 2012 given by Jharkhand Department of Industry. Its main objectives include making Jharkhand a favoured destination for investors and sustainable growth of industrial sector. It looks after friendly linkages between large industries and MSME industries. It assists the manufacturing activities of industries. It facilitates maximum utilization of mineral and natural resources. It accelerates the growth of sericulture, handicraft, handloom, Khadi and village industries for generation of employment in rural areas.
https://www.jharkhand.gov.in/industries
- Tejaswini Rural Women Empowerment Programme
The programme has been implemented by Women Finance and Development Corporation which provides financial assistance to rural women in districts. It helps individuals who are poverty-stricken and also tackles issues like gender imbalances and tribal dominance; and the beneficiaries belong to the poorest of the poor section of the areas. It provides different empowerment inputs, training, group management, accounting and decision taking. It also trains the rural people in accordance to conflict management, gender sensitization, income enhancement inputs, legal awareness, health and hygiene and management of group funds. Presently it is focusing on livelihoods, micro-enterprises and marketing linkages.
http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/file/Tejaswini-Women-Empowerment-Programme.pdf
- MSME Development Institute, Ranchi
MSME Development Institute provides technical assistance by conducting seminars and workshops, project profiles and capacity assessment. It provides skill development training by various skill development programmes and management development programmes. It also performs economic investigation and statistics and performs market development activities. It also promotes export.
- Xavier Institute of Social Service
Entrepreneurship Development Programs are organised from time to time – for the development of entrepreneurship. It aims at an all-round development of an area or a person which emphasises on economic development. It has conducted more than 300 Entrepreneurship Development Programs and vocational training programs.
- Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas(DWCRA)
The main objective of DWCRA was to improve the socio-economic status of the poor women in the rural areas by creating groups of women for income-generating activities, on a self-sustaining basis. The main strategy adopted to make this successful under the programme was to facilitate access for poor women to employment, skill up gradation, training credit and other support services so that the DWCRA women (as a group), could take up income-generating activities for supplementing their incomes. It sought to encourage collective action in the form of group activities so that they can work better and was more sustainable than the individual effort. It encouraged the habit of thrift and credit among poor rural women to make them self-dependent.
The Scheme had been merged into Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY) with IRDP, TRYSEM etc. from April, 1999.
http://planningcommission.nic.in/reports/sereport/ser/maker/mak_cht2c.pdf
- Udyogini
It facilitates and manages training for grassroot level women’s group for the World Bank Institute funded Women’s Enterprise Management Training Outreach Programme (WEMTOP). It also provides training to NGO staff for training Enterprise Support Staff (TEST). Presently Udyogini is working with 50,000 producers and it aims to increase its outreach to 1, 00,000 producers in 5 states- Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. The services include skill and entrepreneurship training, business counselling, market linkages, financial linkages, institution building and social security.
Source:
https://www.startupindia.gov.in/content/sih/en/state-startup-policies.html
Avtar Madan
Content Team
Himanshu
Shree Lahiri
