Hyderabad, Telangana: Swavalamban Sashakt-Mega Campaign, a 20 webinar series for creating awareness, outreach and business opportunity programmes, was launched on 3rd February 2021 by Confederation of Women Entrepreneurs of India (COWE) in association with Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI).
Aimed at giving fillip to the STAND-UP INDIA scheme of the Government of India, this mega campaign is a step towards increasing the penetration and outreach of the scheme among aspirant women Entrepreneur.
All the 20 webinars were structured to offer dream come true feeling to participants. It was mostly held every week on Wednesday (except few corona surge weeks). Each webinar showcased a Business model by an eminent expert from the relevant field.
Banker connect in every session, enlightened the budding entrepreneurs on the banking norms and the requisites of the SUI scheme from the Banker’s perspective.
To raise the spirit of optimism and add to participants’ confidence, a Motivational speaker/ successful entrepreneur presented her success story along with a Stand-Up India loan beneficiary sharing her entrepreneurial journey, to motivate the participants to start their dream ventures.
The participants were also guided how to register on the STANDUPMITRA PORTAL and to avail various financial & non-financial services available on the Portal including how to connect with the hand holding agencies on boarded on the portal, COWE being one of the hand-holding agency on boarded.
To strengthen the MSME ecosystem and expose the participant women to various business models, the sessions focused on various viable business ideas including, Food processing, Medical sector, e-Commerce, Supplies to Hospitality and Hotel Industry, Support Services Sector, Biotechnology, Interior designing, Jewellery designing, Procurement with PSU, IT and IT services, opportunities in Travel and Tourism, Printing and Packaging, Textiles, Fashion Designing, Preschool franchise and Crèche, Event management, Modular kitchen franchise, Organic products, Handicrafts. The webinars could reach out to more than 1500 aspiring women entrepreneurs from across India.
The just concluded 20th session of SWAVALAMBAN SASHAKT MEGA CAMPAIGN on 16th June, 2021, was based on the business module – IT Driven Innovative Services / AI based Solution, where the field experts shared the prospects and business opportunities.
On this occasion Shri. Sivasubramanian Ramann, CMD, SIDBI stated that “Women Empowerment has always been a priority for SIDBI. Our Umbrella Mission Swavalamban, which endeavours to induce entrepreneurship culture, regard women as mainstay influencer on the society leading to transitioning of Aspirant Bharat from job seeker to Job creator. It is pleasing to know that ‘SWAVALAMBAN SASHAKT- Webinar Series” has kindled aspirations of more than 1500 aspirants. I am sure many of these are ready to embark on entrepreneurial journey under national mission of Stand up India Scheme. With reduction of margin and addition of agri allied activities as eligible, GoI has widened the scope and access of the scheme. Aspirant youths should gear up to leverage these. I can assure that SIDBI shall further strengthen the digital eco system of Stand-Up India through Udyamimitra in order to create more opportunities and success stories of growth and business under Atmanirbhar India.”
The power packed session included insightful sessions from Mr Akhilesh Trivedi, Global Mentor & Strategist, Ms Surbhi Jain, Ms Tanu Aggarwal and Banker Ms Banumathi. Immensely motivating sessions from Ms Kamla Poddar and SUI beneficiary Ms Bhagya Lakshmi Thyagrajan were the high points of this highly inspiring session on the virtual platform.
Ms Vandana Maheshwari, National President COWE India shared the vision and mission of COWE. Ms Madhu Tyagi, National Vice President and Chairperson of the webinar series and Ms Nidhi Toshniwal, National Jt. Secretaryand Vice Chairperson of the webinar shared the journey of this 20 webinar series. The planning and execution of the complete series was done under the able guidance of Ms.Uma Ghurka, Chairperson, Board of Directors, COWE INDIA.
With these extensive awareness initiatives, Stand-Up India scheme is turning out to be a great success for Women entrepreneurs, with nearly 82% of SUI beneficiaries being “Women” from all strata of society.
Stand up India Scheme was Launched on 5th April, 2016, by Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi ji, the scheme has been extended till the year 2025.
The objective of the SUI scheme is to facilitate bank loans for an amount between Rs.10 lakh and Rs.1 Crore to at least one Scheduled Caste (SC) or Scheduled Tribe (ST) borrower and at least one Woman (of all strata) borrower per bank branch for setting up a green field enterprise in the field of manufacturing, trading & service industry including Agri Allied activities. And with the Union Budget 2021-2022, announcement to improve credit penetration under the scheme margin money requirement has been reduced from 25% to 15% and (activities allied to agriculture sector are eligible.
