India Entrepreneurship Report 2015 released by Minister of Skill Development, Shri Rudy

Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship(Independent Charge), Shri Rajiv Pratap Rudy released the Indian Entrepreneurship Report 2015 by Amway which aims to understand the latent enthusiasm fro entrepreneurship in the country along-with factors that motivate and obstruct the creation of new enterprises.

Unveiling the report, Shri Rudy said “ The contribution of MSME sector in India is much less as compared to some of the developed nations which needs to be changed. It is critical that there is entrepreneurship led bloom at the grass root level so that India can leverage the demographic dividend to the maximum possible extent. The understanding of motivations, attitudes towards entrepreneurship offers valuable insight to the policy makers.”

Entrepreneurship is valued in India. India Entrepreneurship Report 2015 reports tangible enthusiasm for entrepreneurship as being a good prospect to earn a livelihood in India, with nearly two-thirds of the respondents viewing it favorably. Kerala (78 percent), Punjab (77 percent) and Uttarakhand (76 percent) were the states with most positive attitude towards entrepreneurship.

Research partner Nielsen India surveyed 250 households in each of the 21 states across 50 different cities. One male and one female member in the 21-65 age group were interviewed from each household taking the total no of respondents to 10,768 individuals (Male 5,402 and Female 5,366).

Anshu Budhraja, CEO, Amway India, said, “We are aiming to engage different stakeholders on what drives entrepreneurship in India and contribute to the on-going discussions on the role of skill development and self-employment in improving employability of the youth.

Entrepreneurship is a way for people to realize a better life for themselves and their families. They also create jobs and encourage competition and also spur economic growth and bring opportunities to communities. So, it’s important that businesses like Amway know how entrepreneurs think and act in order to better support and encourage them.” Two-Thirds of Indians view entrepreneurship positively.

Access to finance (41 percent) and Family support (35 percent) emerged as the most important factors to start one’s own business. 73 percent of the respondents believe that anyone can be trained/ educated to be an entrepreneur. 62 percent of all respondents thought that the education they had right now was sufficient to start their own business. Nearly 50% of respondents considering to start their own business. Overall, 19 percent of respondents said that they are “very open to starting a new business and in fact are actively pursuing one”. Jharkhand has the highest number of respondents (60 percent) who say that they are actively pursuing a new business, followed by Uttarakhand (40 percent) and Uttar Pradesh (29 percent).

Nearly half of all respondents (45 percent) said the environment to begin a business in their state has improved over the past five years. 11 percent of the respondents felt that the environment has ‘improved significantly’. 83 percent respondents voted banks as their main port of call for starting a business. This insight clearly point to the role of financial institutions in fostering and facilitating entrepreneurship. Friends and family came second on this index with 78 percent.

Across gender, income and age, the fear of failure emerges as a clear obstacle to starting a business with 63 percent of the overall respondents saying so. The fear of failure is composed of different factors. 31 percent of respondents found “financial burdens up to bankruptcy” as the “most important” cause for the fear. Non-conducive market conditions (24 percent) and fear of unemployment (23 percent) were the other key causes of the fear.

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