What Women Entrepreneurs Want From Budget 2016

With Startup India, the Government has set the expectations high for the startup community. Certain measures need to be revisited, many are pending clarifications and some of them might well be addressed in the budget. Just how entrepreneur-friendly could Budget 2016 be?

10 successful women entrepreneurs tell She The People what they want from budget 2016.

Ms Garima Bhandari, Co - Founder GLO

“With Shri Narendra Modi emphasizing on Startups, as an entrepreneur I would like to draw his kind attention on the participation of women. The rate stands at meager 10% of the total population. Our expectation of the budget is to create EDCs working exclusively to promote women entrepreneurship”.

Ms Sugandh Jolly, Co - Founder GLO

“Ease of doing business we still lack behind, my appeal to the budget makers to kindly improve the existing system of paperwork so that it helps Entrepreneurs. After the startup week hosted by our PM, there should be more clarity on how the planned funds will be disbursed”.

Prachi Garg, founder of Ghoomophiro.com

"A part of startup funds should be allocated for women Entrepreneurs. Special arrangements should be made for women looking for loans from bank for their startups without collateral. Special SME loans/ funds to encourage women Entrepreneurs for good business plans".

Dr. Shikha Suman, Founder & CEO at medimojo.in

“Allocate 10% of startup funds for women entrepreneurs for women specific ecosystem development, travel support to attend events abroad and angel/ seed funding”.

Richa Sharma, Editor at offdhook.com

“I as an entrepreneur would definitely like to see more of stimulation to boost the ecosystem of entrepreneurs. More and more incubators or accelerators for entrepreneurs would prove beneficial in creating a roadmap of success and growth. At last I would want our FM to put more emphasis on creating a women-friendly environment in the digital space by giving special roll outs and incentives to digital start - ups".

Sonia Singal, co-founder at cajobportal.com

“Fiscal incentives for companies to engage startups as vendors, say weighted deduction of 150% on payments made for availing services, recruitment advisory, from a startup”.

Kirthi Jayakumar, The Red Elephant Foundation

"Having seen the kind of ravages that the weather can create on agricultural produce, I'm interested in seeing what the budget this year can do for non-farm opportunities for the non-farm sector. This is particularly of use to women who can make good use of their rural crafts and grass-root activities that can facilitate their economic independence”.

Ruchika Gupta, gulabs.in

“My belief is that a fixed chunk of the budget has to be kept aside for educating the women folk (education), educating them about entrepreneurship, training, empowering them, providing them with skills and initial capital to begin their set up”.

Ms. Aditi Balbir, co-founder and MD of V Resorts

“As a woman entrepreneur I am not looking at any special sops from the government Firstly, Every state has a separate tax policy, they should have a centralized taxation policy in place. Secondly, there should be ease of compliance. Even for a 4-room property, we need to get 10/12 licenses, such as entertainment, fire etc."

Surabhi Dewra, CareerGuide.com

“Budget needs to focus on increasing leadership of women in business.  While we saw last year India Inc. struggled to meet with the deadline of having mandatory women directors in listed companies. What we needed was just less than 1000 women leaders to put on the board!! Clearly a gap in leadership and will from corporation to imply on gender diversity”.

We just hope 2016 becomes a promising year for women entrepreneurs & that India can encourage more and more women to be leaders.