To study the current challenges and future prospects of women entrepreneurship with special reference to forest-based sector in Keonjhar district of Odisha
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Date
2020
Authors
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Publisher
Department of Forest Business Management, OUAT, Bhubaneswar
Abstract
Forests play a central role in rural livelihoods, especially for the poor and marginalized section.
Half of the 1.5 billion people globally who rely on forest produces for subsistence and cash
income are women. Therefore, more focus should be directed in economically upscaling women
from deriving forest-based subsistence to becoming forest-based entrepreneurs for which the
current study is carried out entitled- “To study the current challenges and future prospects
of women entrepreneurship with special reference to forest based sector in Keonjhar
district of Odisha”. The study carried out on forest-based entrepreneurs will not only celebrate
their success but also built a greater dialogue on motivation, support structures and strategies
that led to their success. Present study was fragmented into three sections- i) women subsistence
from forests, ii) their commercialization and iii) current challenges and future prospects of
forest-based entrepreneurship for which data collected from primary sources (interview
schedule) and secondary sources; following conclusions were recorded. Random sampling
conducted for selecting forest-dependent communities and forest-based women entrepreneurs.
Of women with forest-based subsistence, maximum was middle-aged (25-35 years) with
82.79% attended school. Caste-wise, 68.27% OBCs and 20.49% STs. Maximum (95.49%)
married with only 20.43% availed vocational training. 76.71% have nuclear family. Maximum
(68.62%) are marginal, minimum (2.30%) landless and no large farmers recorded. Agriculture
as primary occupation maximum (63.28%) with employment highest (66.44%) for 50-100 days
and lowest (14.43%) for 200 days. Annual income mostly (78.05%)
confined to Rs. 25,000- 50,000 and minimum (2.01%) had > Rs.2,00,000. Highly significant
correlations between socio-economic parameters; values ranging between 0.9995-0.9999.
Knowledge level of women regarding forest-based entrepreneurship was nearly 50% which
suggest that greater awareness programmes must be conducted by government and non government organization. Among the entrepreneurs, maximum is middle-aged with 31.25%
General and ST each. 75% were married and most (43.75%) attended school with only half
availed vocational training. One-fourth units were attached to residence and 75% units were at a
distance. 75% units were registered; majority (68.5%) used capital Rs 3,00,000 (Kendell coefficient of concordance). 25% availed
NGO support; hence development required in this direction. 93.75% were aware of government
support, while 87.5% availed government support services and also low reliability recorded
over these services (Cronbach’s alpha). 81.25% aware of government financial support. Low
levels of aptitude were recorded regarding forest-based employment, hence awareness and
support in this direction is a must. Lack of motivation, managerial skills, market linkages,
institutional support, ability to cope up with changing business, business knowledge, financial
ability; personal unwillingness are the major threats encountered by women to start an
enterprise, hence support for boosting motivation and confidence, management and technical
assistance, extending effective market linkage, vocational and skill upgrading programmes,
finance, effective policy and infrastructure, gender sensitization in rural areas and awareness,
social mobilization and capacity development must be provided.
Description
Th-6348