Thousands of female entrepreneurs are starting their business journeys with new vigour and vibrancy thanks to the Jammu and Kashmir administration, led by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, who has created a supportive and conducive climate to promote women entrepreneurship culture in the UT.
The UT's enthusiastic business women are ascending the ladder of success with help from the government in the form of multiple financial incentives under various programmes, allowing them to reach the top echelons of the commercial world.
The administration's primary measures for assisting women entrepreneurs with appropriate educational backgrounds and experience are yielding significant benefits. The government works to guarantee that women become a beacon of enlightenment and a key driver in Jammu and Kashmir's development.
In Jammu and Kashmir, the National Rural Livelihoods Mission is known as the Jammu and Kashmir State Rural Livelihoods Mission (Umeed).
The UMEED (JK Rural Livelihood Mission) is in the process of transforming women into progressive, self-employed women entrepreneurs.
The Rural Livelihood Mission aims to alleviate poverty in the state by establishing strong grassroots institutions for the poor, involving them in profitable livelihoods activities, and assuring a sustained increase in their income.
With 60,000 Self Help Groups (SHG) and 5,02641 women beneficiaries, JKRLM has become a change-driven movement in J&K.
According to official numbers, SHGs supported by Umeed JKRLM have received Rs 890.55 crore in bank credit and Rs 273.88 crore in capitalization from JKRLM.
The fact that these SHGs have raised Rs 168.88 crore from their own funds is both encouraging and motivating.
Similarly, the J&K government's Mission Youth programme empowers youth as a key partner in Participatory Good Governance. To commemorate International Youth Day 2021, 4239 Youth Clubs have been established on a Mission Mode basis in J&K. These young groups are enlisting volunteers who will have the opportunity to work through real-world problems and create significant societal changes.
With the foundation of these 4239 Youth Clubs under Mission Youth in record time, the J&K Government has taken a significant step toward making the youth a partner in the government process and the development of the UT.
More than 8000 women are members of these clubs in order to provide adequate representation for women.
It is also worth noting that the J&K government has assisted 6000 young women who were selected at the Panchayat level in becoming entrepreneurs.
Meanwhile, Dr. Syed Sehrish Asgar, the Mission Director of the Jammu and Kashmir Rural Livelihood Mission (JKRLM), got the renowned SKOCH award for her remarkable contribution to the economic development of rural women through the SAATH programme.
The SKOCH Foundation has awarded the JKRLM the coveted SKOCH Award in honour of the JKRLM's achievements under the SAATH programme.
LG Sinha remarked, "Collective efforts are generating beneficial outcomes," while meeting with recipients from J&K under the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Pragati and Saksham scholarship schemes via virtual mode. In 2021, there were 94 gold medalists at Kashmir University's convocation, with 77 percent of them (66) being female. Similarly, the majority of gold medalists at the Islamic University of Science and Technology's convocation were women, which he described as "concrete evidence of women empowerment."
LG Sinha emphasised the importance of policy execution as well as the necessity to focus on women's skill training and re-skilling so that they can participate equally in future economic possibilities.
