Scheme for women entrepreneurs gets 23 lakh applicants in just a month in Bihar

Sharma said the department has been overwhelmed with the response to the scheme. “Our next step is to monitor how the applicants have been going about the business proposal. Let us also make it clear that Rs 2.10 lakh is not the fixed amount to be given under the scheme. The assistance amount would depend on the scale and viability of the entrepreneurship.”

Sharma said the Rs 10,000 which has already been given out would not have to be returned. “We had erroneously given Rs 10,000 each to 470 handicapped men. Now, women members from their families are applying to get the amount adjusted. No coercive action is being taken against anyone under handicapped category.”

Introduced right before the Assembly elections, the scheme, as part of which the government decided to pay Rs 10,000 each to prospective women entrepreneurs, turned out to be a winning initiative for the ruling NDA. The scheme provided for extending financial assistance up to Rs 2.10 lakh in several installments to women planning to venture into entrepreneurship avenues, including poultry, fisheries, agro-based business, painting and any other allied fields with the rider that the scheme would not be open to anyone who is a tax-payee or has a tax-paying spouse.

Notably, urban women entrepreneurs have not been disbursed the first installment of Rs 10,000 yet.