Study of problems faced by Women Entrepreneurs with special reference to Self Help Groups in Eranakulam District

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is the act of being an entrepreneur, which can be defined as "one who takes over the world, innovations, finance and business acumen in an effort to transform innovations into economic goods". This may result in new organizations or may be part of revitalizing mature organizations in response to a perceived opportunity. An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture or idea and is accountable for the inherent risks and the outcome. When women enter into a business venture a women entrepreneur is born. Lack of specific skills and restriction on availability of any meaningful employment in the rural or semi rural areas compels a woman to start her own business.
 A Self-Help Group (SHG) is a registered or unregistered group of micro entrepreneurs having homogenous social and economic backgrounds, voluntarily coming together to save regular small sums of money. They mutually agree to contribute to a common fund and to meet their emergency needs on the basis of mutual help. Also it is a group of people who pool in their resources to become financially stable by taking loans from the money collected by that group and by making everybody of that group self-employed.
 However a lot of SHG’s face a lot of problems and close down after venturing into their own enterprises. In the present paper the researchers have made an attempt to find out and analyse the reasons for success or failure of the business ventures as established by women SHG’s in the city of Eranakulam.