The strength of any structure depends on the strength of its each unit. In Indian society, women are the building blocks. Not only society, for every family, women are the most important and strongest part. Some of them are educated while some are not. Hence it is imperative that women should be the strongest units of our society, regardless of their religion, caste, creed or location, be it a small village or a town, a city or a metro. Talking about small towns and places in India the rate of employment and education for women is low as compared to that of metropolitan and big cities but this doesn’t mean that in these places all the women are working and educated. The reason behind this less ratio of working women to that of men is because earlier they were not given much importance and they were not allowed to have higher education and even they were even deprived of the basic education in some places.

But with time many changes have come. Now girls are allowed to get educated and they are even allowed to work. Our government has also realized the importance of women and to empower them they have come up with different loan schemes for women to help them in starting their own business. For starting a small business you don’t need to be a MBA degree holder or have any higher degree. If you are a woman and not highly educated then also you can start small business for supporting your family and more over it will help you to bring a kind of self-respect and confident.

Small Business Ideas for Women in India

Opening a Boutique Shop: If you have a good fashion sense you can go with this idea of opening a boutique shop. All you need to do is first start with the market research. Before you start you should know the current fashion trends and outdo the competitors in every aspect such as quality, design and price. Conduct a research on your competitor shops that what they are selling and at what price. Quote your price according to that. Second thing is that you should prepare a rough and approx. budget of your expenses from shop area to the product cost so that you can apply for a small business loan accordingly.

Boutique Shop

Beauty Salon: Starting a beauty salon doesn’t require much fund. All you need is a good place to open your salon and you should have the proper knowledge of beauty, hair and personal care. This business can be started alone only to increase the manpower later on with the growth in the business and profits. This business comes with a great competition so you should have a good skill of dealing with your customers.

Beauty Salon

Craft Making: Many women have craft making as a hobby so if you are willing to start a business then why not make your hobby an earning option for you. You can start making crafts for home decors and for gifts as well. Now we are blessed with internet and eCommerce, so use internet for generating new ideas and designs for your crafts. You can sell them by opening your own shop, website or can use a seller for it.

Craft Making

Fitness Center: Opening a fitness center is a good option to start your own business. A fitness related business need more planning and research. You have to deal for the fitness of many people so you have to be more careful. You should have a proper knowledge about fitness, health as well as of diet. So it’s important that you should go for this business when you have educate knowledge. For this purchasing machines for exercise and all may cost you more. So it’s better to go for a business loan for this venture.

Wedding Planner: This business can be started by someone who has a proper knowledge about wedding rituals, expenses and everything related to it. Women are always good in management skill and no one can understand and plan a wedding better than them. Today the opportunity in this field has increased as now everyone wants to have a big fat wedding. So they hire  professionals for this. One of the other reason behind this is lack of time with every individual. So it’s a good option to start this business. Not much fund is required for this as your clients themselves will finance it.

Consultancy Firm: In the event that you are very much aware of the market around you and have a decent system of contacts with experts from various enterprises, you could set up a consultancy firm and offer the data with others. Setting up needn’t bother with much infrastructure A little room can be transformed into your business office.

Interior Decoration: Women are a perfect home maker with a skill of keeping a home beautifully decorated with crafts and beautiful interiors. Hence, it would be great that you open an interior decoration store where you can keep beautiful crafts and decorative items for a home. Consult some craft maker and purchase items with them at reasonable price. All you need you this is money for purchasing a shop place you can also take it on rent. The other investment required for this is fund to purchase crafts in beginning for few month. After that you can invest the money from the profits. You can take a business loan for women if needed.

Interior Decoration

Catering Business: Women are said to be best in cooking! So if you are good at it you can start a catering business in which you can prepare food for people and provide them tiffin. You can even take a loan for starting this business. This requires kitchen equipment only. With the growth in the business you can increase the manpower.  

Being a women entrepreneur or even if you are trying to become one, you can use above mentioned ideas to start your own venture and if you are worried about funds and support then you can stop now. There are many business loans which our government has begun to empower women and they are giving loans to women who have perfect ideas and potential to implement it. In these loans special rebate and flexibility are given for the interest rates and for their repayments and regarding collateral and security too.

Small Business Loans for Women

Udyogini Scheme: This scheme has been started by Punjab and Syndicate Bank to empower and support entrepreneur women. Under this scheme women who want to start a business or who already have a small business can get up to ₹ 100,000 as loan. To avail this loan the family income of women should be  minimum ₹ 45,000 per annum. In the case of ST/SC and widows and physically disabled there is no such criteria.  Even Karnataka Government is also running such schemes.

Cent Kalyani Scheme: This scheme has been started by Central Bank of India. The goal of this scheme is to support self-employed women, women working in cottage industry, small enterprises and who are employed in agriculture sector. This scheme helps women to expand their business and to start new projects. No collateral or security is required for this.

Mahila Udyam Nidhi Scheme: This scheme supports women who are running small scale business. Under this scheme women can get a loan up to 10 lakhs which they can repay in a tenor of 10 years.

Small Business Loan for women

Mudra Yojana Scheme For Women: This scheme has been started by the government of India for women. Under this scheme women who are willing to start their own beauty parlor, tailoring center, tuition center can get a loan easily. This loan is also collateral free.

This scheme has 3 levels:

Sishu- Under this beginners can get a loan which is up to ₹ 50,000.

Kishor- Under this those who are having a established business can get a loan from ₹ 50,000 to ₹ 5,00,000.

Tarun- Under this who want to extend their already well going business can get a loan up to ₹ 10,00,000.

Small Business Loans for Women

Bharatiya Mahila Bank Business Loan: The goal of this bank is to empower women by supporting entrepreneur women for their new ventures. Being a women entrepreneur you can get a loan up to 1 crore with this bank which would be absolutely collateral free. With this bank you can avail a concession of 0.25% in your interest rates.

Annapurna Scheme: This loan is given by state bank of Mysore. Under this scheme women entrepreneur who want to start a catering business like providing lunch or any kind of food and tiffin survives can get a loan. Under this a women can get a loan up to ₹ 50,000 which they can use for purchasing kitchen item. This loan is EMI free for one month and requires a collateral.