BENGALURU:A pan-India consortium of women entrepreneurs, UBUNTU, has submitted a set of suggestions to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to include in this year’s state budget to promote women entrepreneurship in Karnataka. This will be Bommai’s first budget as chief minister that will be presented on March 4.Former Chief Secretary K Ratna Prabha, who is UBUNTU president, requested the chief minister to include the consortium while framing the budget to create a woman-centric industrial policy.
She said the recently launched Industrial Policy 2020-25 does not have any prominence and scope for development of women entrepreneurship. She requested for the restoration of schemes related to women entrepreneurs mentioned in the 2014-19 Industrial Policy.
“The allocation of Rs 5 crore for the ELEVATE programme for women entrepreneurship proposed in the previous budget was not implemented and needs a new avatar anchored by the Department of Industries and Commerce both for initiation and reach, and not IT/BT as most of the women entrepreneurs in the state are in the manufacturing sector, agro, health handicraft, food processing etc,” she added. A change in name will also help avoid confusion with the ELEVATE programme for startups in the IT sector, she said. “We could name it Shakti. Land cost has become prohibitive for women entrepreneurs. There is a need for allotment of land in industrial estates and parks with 50 per cent subsidised cost for women entrepreneurs,” she added.
For startups, Ratnaprabha said they do not require land, but need hand-holding. There is also a need for incubation centres with plug-and-play infrastructure facilities and a flat factory system for women entrepreneurs to start and operate at subsidised and affordable cost. “This effort can begin in a phased manner, preferably in Bengaluru, Hubballi, Mysuru and Kalaburagi to address scarcity of industrial land. It can be named as KWEENS HUB – Karnataka Women Entrepreneurs Enterprise Networks, just as WEHUB in Telangana,” she added.