Journal of Entrepreneurship & Management

Nisha Bharti ¹

Affiliations
1 Symbiosis Institute of International Business, IN

Abstract

Indian economy is considered to be one of the largest agrarian economies of the world. In the year 2007-08, agriculture sector contributed approximately 17.8 percent of India’s GDP (at constant 1999-2000 prices) and 12.2 percent of total exports. According to 2001 census, this sector provides employment to 58.2 percent work force of India (Annual Report, Ministry of Agriculture, 2009). Limited resources, erratic rainfall, climatic hazards, and fragmented landholdings are some of the major factors associated with low agricultural productivity, leading to low profit for farmers which results in unemployment and underemployment for vast section farmers especially small and marginal farmers. Most of the Indian agriculture is rainfed and unable to provide sustainable income generation round the year. In this situation, selfemployment in general and microenterprise in particularis evolving as a prospective option for livelihood and income generation. Lack of skill has been identified as one of the key hindrance in promoting microenterprises among poor. Various initiatives by various organisations have been taken to promote entrepreneurship among poor. This paper is an attempt to document one of the successful experiences in providing training to the poor with the objectives of promoting self-employment. The study concludes that provision of training alone does not help in promoting entrepreneurship due to lack of access to finance.

Keywords

Microenterprise, Building Human Capital.

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Nisha Bharti ¹

Affiliations
1 Symbiosis Institute of International Business, Hinjewadi, Pune, Maharashtra, IN

Abstract

Among various self-employment options, micro-enterprise has been recognized as an important tool for employment generation and poverty alleviation in developing countries by policy makers. This study is an attempt to look at some of the micro-enterprises as a livelihood source for the poor and constraints faced by them in establishing and running their micro-enterprise. The study involves a survey of 40 micro-entrepreneurs in the Maharashtra state of India. The study involves simple statistical analysis. This paper concludes that typically a micro-entrepreneur is a male, landless and young person between the ages of 21-40 years. These micro-enterprises are of diverse nature but largely these micro-enterprises are service oriented and been started with self-motivation with the objective of getting employment. Less than 50 percent of these micro-enterprise got support for establishing micro-enterprise from other sources like friends and other organization largely for finance and skill. These are own account enterprises started with very minimal investment, mostly less than Rs. 10000 and most of these micro-enterprises are able to generate a annual profit of less than Rs.20000. Among constraints faced by these micro-entrepreneurs, finance was the most important constraint identified.

Keywords

Microenterprise, Microentrepreneurship, Livelhood.

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