Encouraging! J&K sees four-time increase in women entrepreneurs after Covid outbreak

Call it aftereffects of Covid-19 pandemic or growing awareness among women folk, Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed a significant increase in the number of registrations of women-owned Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), as the UT recorded four-time rise in women-led MSMEs since 2020.

Overall, the number of MSMEs too has reported a sizable increase of 1.25 lakh MSMEs registration under Udyam—an online system for registering such enterprises launched by the Union MSME Ministry on July 1, 2020.

The emerging trend is quite encouraging with women, who tend to do more household chores than their male partners—showing keen interests in making Udyam registration which is a prerequisite for availing the benefits of schemes or programmes of the Ministry of MSMEs such as Credit Guarantee Scheme, public procurement policy, additional edge in government tenders and protection against delayed payments etc.

According to an official document tabled in the Parliament, as many as 3,005 women-owned MSMEs registrations, including 2903 in micro category, were made during the year 2020-21 while the number of such registrations for the financial year 2021-22 was 13,339 and 12,747 in the current financial year (till December 1).
“A financial support of Rs 870 crore has been made to women beneficiaries including Rs 160.46 crore for year 2020-21, Rs 349.03 crore during the year 2021-22 and Rs 360.96 crore for the current financial year (till December 1, 2022) under Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSME),” the documents suggested.

Moreover, as many as 3,235 women-led projects were set up under the Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) in Jammu and Kashmir during the year 2020-21 which generated an estimated employment for 25,880 persons. The total number of 8,520 projects was set up by women under PMEGP during the year 2021-22 and it generated employment for 68,160 persons, while 3,188 projects were established in the current financial year which generated employment for over 25,000 persons.

The government claimed that it has taken a number of initiatives to support MSMEs, including women-owned enterprises which comprise Rs. 5 lakh crore Collateral Free Automatic Loans under Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) for business, including MSMEs, Rs. 50,000 crore equity infusion through MSME Self-Reliant India Fund, new revised criteria for classification of MSMEs, no global tenders for procurement up to Rs 200 crores, inclusion of Retail and Wholesale traders as MSMEs with effect from July 2, 2021 and non-tax benefits extended for 3 years in case of an upward change in status of MSMEs.