RURAL WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND MICRO ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT - AN INSIGHT

Entrepreneurship is an innovative and dynamic process, whereby, a new enterprise is created Entrepreneur is a catalytic agent of change, which generates employment opportunities for others. The emergence of entrepreneurs in a society depends to a great extent on the economic, social, religious, cultural and psychological factor prevailing in the society. Entrepreneurship amongst women is a recent phenomenon. When an enterprise is established and controlled by a woman, it not only boosts economic growth, but also has many desirable outcomes. Rural women possess abundant resources to take up an enterprise. Hence she can effectively undertake both production and processing oriented enterprises. But to be a successful entrepreneur, women should process certain fundamental qualities beside the support of the family and government organizations. Women entrepreneurs play an important role in local economies, and a large percentage of micro-enterprises in developing countries are undertaken by women. Increasingly women in urban and rural areas are successfully turning to self-generated employment in small-scale enterprise activities in the informal sector to support their households. Rural women frequently have primary responsibility for agricultural production, in addition to domestic responsibilities and childcare. In many countries, women are the majority of workers in nonstandard work, such as temporary, casual, multiple part time, contract and home-based activities. SHG is promoting micro enterprise through micro-credit intervention. The paper highlights the issues concerning women entrepreneurship, SHGs, reasons to promote, micro enterprises development, role of women in microenterprises, advantages and challenges and so on.