The Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) has mobilised over 10 crore women into 90 lakh self-help groups (SHGs) across India, enabling many to emerge as first-generation entrepreneurs, a senior government official said here on Thursday.
Shailesh Kumar Singh, Secretary, Union Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), highlighted the role of the incubator programme in fostering women-led rural enterprises.
He noted the success of pilot projects in Assam, Bihar, West Bengal and Karnataka, and said states like Kerala, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh are now scaling up in partnership with leading academic institutions.
The Ministry, in collaboration with Kerala State Rural Livelihood Mission (Kudumbashree), is hosting a two-day National Workshop on Rural Enterprise Incubators under DAY-NRLM in Thiruvananthapuram.
Addressing the event, Kerala’s Minister for Local Self-Government M.B. Rajesh reaffirmed the state’s commitment to supporting women entrepreneurs through Kudumbashree and expressed confidence that the workshop would serve as a platform for collaboration and innovation to strengthen rural enterprise ecosystems.
Swati Sharma, Joint Secretary (RL), MoRD, said the Ministry envisions scaling the incubator initiative into a national platform for women-led rural entrepreneurship. She stressed that the workshop would deliver actionable strategies and build strong partnerships for its long-term success.
The programme features panel discussions on mentoring, financing, technology, market access, and convergence, with participation from academia, industry, and social enterprise networks. Assam Agricultural University Vice-Chancellor Dr Bidyut C Dekha delivered the felicitation address, while Kudumbashree Executive Director H. Dineshan welcomed participants.
According to the ministry, the two-day deliberations are expected to generate strategies for scaling rural enterprise incubation across states, advancing women’s entrepreneurship under DAY-NRLM in line with the vision of Viksit Bharat@2047.
