Bhubaneswar: Gone are the days when most women were confined to the four walls of their homes to perform household chores. Today, the glass ceiling has been broken and women are taking the lead in all spheres of life. When it comes to entrepreneurship, there are numerous examples of how women reached the pinnacles in their respective professions defying gender stereotypes.
The story is no different in Odisha with over 40 per cent of the startups registered in the state being run by women entrepreneurs till 2021. Compared to this, only 14 per cent of startups in India are run by women entrepreneurs.
The Naveen Patnaik government in Odisha has always been espousing women’s empowerment. It had set a target of 33 per cent entrepreneurial growth for women and the above figure surpasses that target.
“Odisha has more than 1,537 startups and nearly 539 of these are run by women,” Startup Odisha evangelist Sanjukta Badhai said. According to Badhai, special funding and capacity-building programmes were introduced in Odisha to help women entrepreneurs nurture their ideas.
“We provide an allowance of Rs 22,000 to women entrepreneurs every month to help them realise their dreams. In addition, a grant of up to Rs 16 lakh is available to support the process of product building and taking it to the market,” she said.
Of late, the Odisha government has launched several initiatives under the Startup Odisha programme to help women to grow. The government has set up a Rs 100-crore fund to provide large-scale investment to startups.
Dr Omkar Rai, Executive Chairman, Startup Odisha, Government of Odisha, says, “We intend to give additional thrust to the startup ecosystem by granting better incentives to prospective entrepreneurs. A Fund-of-Funds scheme has been promulgated by Startup Odisha under which AIFs of national and global repute participated, thereby provisioning an investment of Rs 950 crore into state-based startups and women of course get the priority”.
