Prime Highlights
- Microfinance is helping women across Uttarakhand start small businesses, improve household incomes and achieve greater financial independence.
- Increased access to credit is encouraging women entrepreneurs in rural and hilly regions to build sustainable livelihoods through dairy farming, tailoring, handicrafts and retail ventures.
Key Facts
- Uttarakhand has seen increasing participation by women entrepreneurs in sectors such as dairy farming, handicrafts, tailoring, food processing and retail.
- DJT Microfinance provided financial assistance that helped a woman entrepreneur establish a dairy farming enterprise in Haridwar district.
Background
Many women in the villages of Uttarakhand are discovering that a small loan can be the beginning of their financial freedom journey.
All across the State, women are availing themselves of microfinance assistance to set up their own small businesses such as dairy farming, tailoring, making handicrafts, processing food products and setting up small shops. This helps in earning extra money as well as allowing women a greater say in financial matters at home.
This phenomenon is seen more prominently in the remote parts of the Kumaon and Garhwal regions of Uttarakhand, which lack facilities for banking services and employment opportunities. Microfinance loans have helped women buy livestock, sewing machines, small shops and improve their farm practices.
An instance of this is that of Rekha Devi, who is from Jagjeetpur village of Haridwar district. After getting a loan from DJT Microfinance, she bought herself some dairy cattle and started her dairy farming business. This turned out to be an income-generating venture for her.
Rekha said she had long wanted to contribute financially to her household but lacked the money needed to begin. The loan enabled her to enter dairy farming, and the earnings now help cover daily expenses as well as her children’s education.
Microfinance institutions have been extending their influence further into the rural and hilly parts of Uttarakhand, making credit available to women who had earlier found it difficult to acquire. Development specialists suggest that such ventures will succeed only if finance is provided along with training and economic opportunities.
With an increasing number of women venturing into entrepreneurship, these micro businesses are becoming a source of strength to local economies.
