OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP: A STUDY AMONG THE WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS OF AKSHAYA ICT CENTRES

Abstract

Women entrepreneurs are becoming the changing agents of empowered nation and positive economy. Women entrepreneurs are those who run or manage a business enterprise. According to Sixth Economic Census released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, women constitute around 14% of the total entrepreneurship i.e. 8.05 million out of the total 58.5 million entrepreneurs. While many are accidental entrepreneurs, there are many others who have come to entrepreneurship out of passion and hard work. However, the prospects and hurdles are many, which ranges from finance to gender issues for both the categories.This paper analyses the opportunities and challenges faced by the women entrepreneurs of Akshaya ICT project in Kerala. Akshaya is the ICT project of Government of Kerala launched in 2002 with an aim to make the state e-literate. Following the grant success of e-literacy, Akshaya ICT centres ventured into citizen services. One of the objectives of Akshaya is to promote and strengthen entrepreneurship through digital interventions. Public Private partnership model of the project helped many enthusiastic entrepreneurs including women to have their own business under the government flagship.