TN has highest number of women entrepreneurs: Report

Tamil Nadu has the highest number of women entrepreneurs in India, followed by Kerala and West Bengal, reveals a new report.

Nearly 80 per cent of women entrepreneurs in India are self-financing their businesses, with little utilisation of the various government schemes that provide financial aid to them, according to the state-wise analysis of state of women entrepreneurship in the country by Sheatwork, a knowledge hub for women entrepreneurs.

Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Rajasthan, and West Bengal have emerged as top five states offering the maximum number of schemes for women entrepreneurs, it said.

"While significant efforts have been made by the Central and state governments as well as independent agencies through the years in India, there still exists a huge gap in awareness and promotion levels of women entrepreneurship," Sheatwork.com founder Ruby Sinha said in a statement.

The education sector has the maximum number of women entrepreneurs followed by financial services, insurance, livestock, forestry and lodging, showed the findings based on information available online.

"Our objective is to understand where women entrepreneurship in India stands today, how the existing ecosystem and the various government schemes for women entrepreneurs can be better utilised and enhanced further to encourage more and more women to start their own ventures," Sinha said.

Although the numbers of women entrepreneurs in the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland are not impressive, the ratio of male to female entrepreneurs in these state strongly favours women, said the report released this week.