Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: The Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), an entrepreneurship training institute, is launching a a skill development, entrepreneurship programme for women-led green businesses across 100 districts in India. The aim is to enable 10,000 women start and manage a business that will be registered as MSMEs. The announcement was made on Friday at India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi during a roundtable discussion on the modus-operandi of the programme.
The programme is aimed at creating and fostering women entrepreneurs mostly in tier-II and tier-III cities within a time frame of 1,000 days.
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Sunil Shukla, Director General of the institute, told FEAspire (erstwhile Financial Express Online) that they will be identifying the beneficiaries for the programme amongst the existing women practising green entrepreneurship, the students at the institute and at other educational institutes that are EDII’s partners.
The focus, said Shukla, will be on handholding existing informal entrepreneurs and the new ones to help them create a business model, avail credit and access institutional support.
EDII has partnered with corporates such as like Accenture, Facebook, Bayer Foundation, HSBC Bank, Walmart, ITC, Yes Bank, ONGC and Amazon for its Micro Skill Development Programme (MSDP) to develop several green businesses including urban terrace gardening kits, bamboo crafts, mushroom cultivation, organic fertilizers, beekeeping, and biodegradable plates made from leaves.
The programme would delve into sectors including agriculture, food processing, healthcare, renewable energy, algae-based water pollutant removal, handicraft, handloom and organic farming to name a few.
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“The duration of the programme would be 1,000 days as the mortality rate of new businesses is very high and the first three years are the most vulnerable for any business to sustain,” explained Shukla.
Enrolling in the programme will help the entrepreneurs to register themselves as MSMEs. “Our target is to register all the beneficiaries as MSMEs so they are able to access government schemes like Mudra and credit guarantee scheme. We will also get their Udyog Aadhar made and register them on the Government’s e-marketplace (GeM).”
“Rural entrepreneurship has the potential to power over 70 per cent of the Indian economy with the right set of skills and low-cost technology for the right set of people. Without ideas from rural areas turning into living enterprises there is no Aatmnirbhar Bharat,” he added.
Raman Gujral, Director, Department of Project (Corporates), EDII, highlighted the growing requirement for high-end, value-added products and services in the market with minimal environmental harm. “The need for sustainability in business applies to both big corporates and small enterprises. There is a need for newer innovations and eco-friendly practices both in rural and urban sectors,” he said.