Budget 2024: What do women entrepreneurs expect from FM Nirmala Sitharaman?

Union Budget 2024: Experts seek women-centric initiatives that harness their entrepreneurship potential by providing credit opportunities, improve financial literacy and foster skill development

Ahead of the tabling of Union Budget 2024, scheduled for July 23, there is a rising demand for measures to improve the social and economic conditions of women in the country.

Industry experts have said that the comprehensive Budget should introduce additional measures to improve women's socio-economic conditions, according to a report by The Economic Times.

The report quoted Aparajita Bharti, co-founder of public policy consulting firm TQH Consulting, who said the focus should be on initiatives that harness the potential for entrepreneurial activities by providing credit opportunities, enhancing financial literacy, and fostering skill development.

Highlighting systemic biases, Hardika Shah, founder and CEO at Kinara Capital, stated that the Union Budget needs to address women entrepreneurs and clear some of the gaps impeding their empowerment.

Budget 2024: Addressing the lack of female representation

“Though India has the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem, the share of funding raised by women-led startups from 2020 to 2022 was a mere 15 per cent of the overall startup funding (according to a Tracxn report). Systemic biases and perception challenges often limit their ability to secure financing. Unconscious prejudices among investors and a lack of female representation in funding institutions exacerbate the situation further,” she said, as quoted by the report.

The challenge extends beyond modern startups to the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME) sector, where women make up just 20 per cent of the workforce but are responsible for 40 per cent of the sector's $400 billion credit gap, the report quoted her as saying.

The upcoming Budget is a key moment for the government to outline strategies for enhancing women's participation in the workforce. Despite an increase in women's labour force involvement from 32.8 per cent in 2021-22 to 37 per cent in 2022-23, Shah believes this is still not sufficient.

The report quoted her saying that it is important to increase the workforce participation of women to 50 per cent to achieve India's target of 8 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

Speaking about gender-neutral policies, she said that although the 26-week paid maternity leave is a positive step, implementing paid parental leave policies for both mothers and fathers would have a greater impact.

Women-owned companies to generate 160 million jobs

Ramesh Alluri Reddy, CEO of TeamLease Degree Apprenticeship, projects that by 2030, more than 30 million women-led businesses might create between 160 and 170 million jobs, which could significantly reshape the economic environment.

“To make the women's workforce ready and increase their employability, incentives for employers to adopt more gender-neutral policies are essential. A 50 per cent rise in female workforce participation could elevate GDP growth by 1.5 percentage points. The upcoming Budget should include targeted interventions such as subsidies, price regulation of crucial commodities, and direct benefit transfers (DBT) to enhance accessibility,” the report quoted him as saying.