Niti Aayog Launching Women Entrepreneurs’ Cell

As the number of women entrepreneurs grow in the country, the government is doing everything to encourage women to start businesses at all levels. The Niti Aayog is launching a women entrepreneurs' cell by March.

India held the Global Entrepreneuship Summit in November 2017 in partnership with the US. One of its main focus areas was to promote entrepreneurship among women. As part of the summit, more than two dozen women are on a business trip to the US along with a few officials from Niti Aayog.

During a recent talk, NITI Aayog member Anna Roy told a Washington DC audience that women entrepreneurs are imperative in bringing economical development in both public and private sectors in the country.

At a reception hosted in the honour of a delegation of women entrepreneurs from India by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Roy said that the Women entrepreneurs’ cell will create awareness. It will bring visibility to the existing initiatives, bring departments together, enable partner connect, consolidate and leverage from all these efforts. These are all the things Ivanka Trump, advisor and daughter of US President Donald Trump, had said in her speech when she flew down to India for the GES.

The cell will offer financial assistance to women entrepreneurs from the Rs 10,000 crore Fund of Funds and Mudra micro-loan scheme. It will also provide mentorship in scaling up their businesses

Roy will head the Women Entrepreneurial and Innovation Cell of Niti Aayog. The cell will offer financial assistance to women entrepreneurs from the Rs 10,000 crore Fund of Funds and Mudra micro-loan scheme. It will also provide mentorship in scaling up their businesses.

Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant had earlier said that the cell will help promote women entrepreneurs across the country. The delegation of women entrepreneurs are set to travel to Boston, Pittsburg and San Francisco.

“The GES was a crucial event. It gave a strong impetus to what NITI Aayog was planning and had in the pipeline,” said India’s Ambassador to the US Navtej Singh Sarna.

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“Women have held a very important social, political and economic role in India. And today when you modernise that role and you give it the kind of shape of entrepreneurship and give it the facilitation, I think one can see a far more focused work than men can do,” Sarna said.

CEO of FIA Technologies, and a member of the delegation, Seema Prem, believes that the Indian government has formulated policies in the recent past that caters specifically to women.

“What I have seen is that the government is very, very pro-women. We have seen that in all aspects. I work in the financial inclusion space... what I have seen is that a woman entrepreneur has a lot more leverage and has a lot of acceptance,” Prem said.

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