State to set up equal opportunity panel

The State government will set up an Equal Opportunity Commission to ensure women entrepreneurs are recognised in all sectors, Industries Minister Subhash Desai said in the Council on Monday. A demand for setting up a commission was raised by Shiv Sena legislator Neelam Ghore, who had recently represented the State at the United Nations. Ms. Ghore said, “According to the UN Charter, the commission must be appointed to explore and identify opportunities for women in all sectors, not just industries.”

Mr. Desai said 20% of land under the Maharashtra Industrial Decelopment Corporation has been kept reserved for women entrepreneurs. “Maharashtra is the first State to have proposed a separate Industrial Policy for women. We have called for suggestions from women entrepreneurs to make the policy more effective,” said Mr. Desai.

The Cabinet this year had approved the industrial policy to boost and encourage female entrepreneurship. While announcing the policy, the government had said it would lead to an investment of about ₹2,000 crore and create about one lakh jobs in the next five years. Mr. Desai had declared that the government would set aside ₹648 crore in next year’s budget, and this year a provision of ₹15 crore would be made.

However, Congress MLC Sanjay Dutt said not a single rupee has been allocated in this year’s budget for the project. He said, “This government is only good at making promises. They promised to allocate money, but have done nothing so far with regard to this scheme.”

Mr. Desai said the government would allocate money if needed from the ₹2,650-crore budget of the Industries Department. He said under the policy a woman entrepreneur would receive financial assistance from ₹15 lakh to ₹1 crore. The assistance would be 15% to 35% of the capital investment of the project and would be extended at a subsidised interest rate of up to 5%.

Increasing participation

Mr. Desai added, “The government aims to increase participation of women in the sector from the current 9% to 20%. To achieve this, women entrepreneurs will be given capital grants, electricity grants and gains on the loan interest. Since the scheme was announced on December 5, 2017, the budgetary allocation will be made in next year’s budget.”

The projects would be given electricity at subsidised rate of ₹1 to ₹2 per unit instead of the ₹7 to ₹8 per unit, which industries are charged now. He said women need to be 100% owners of their business to avail benefits under the policy. Mr. Desai said, “50% of the workforce should be women. Assistance of ₹50 lakh would be provided to entrepreneurs for participating in foreign exhibitions.”