The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Joint initiative for helping women entrepreneurs

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 02, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Joint initiative for helping women entrepreneurs

Staff Reporter

Madras University and Canara Bank come together The women, aged between 25 and 35, will be taught to make paper bags, paper plates, jams, squashes, pickles and bakery products

CHENNAI : The Madras University Students Advisory Bureau and Canara Bank, Chennai, have jointly started an initiative to help women entrepreneurs.

The programme will target both training and funding aspects of entrepreneurship for women. As a first step, 50 women have been chosen to receive training in various trades during a 22-day workshop.

C. K. Gariyali, Secretary to the Governor of Tamil Nadu, inaugurated the workshop on Friday. She urged the women to start their ventures with confidence.

Ms. Gariyali also had a word of praise for the husbands who had accompanied their wives to the workshop and said that family support was a catalyst for the success of a woman entrepreneur. The women, aged between 25 and 35, will be taught to make paper bags, paper plates, jams, squashes, pickles and bakery products.

Maintenance of electric home appliances, manufacturing soap and shampoo with simple chemicals, artificial flower making, screen printing and cosmetology are some of the other trades to which the women would be given exposure.

Specialisation

"We have experts coming to train the women. Once the women have an idea of the different avenues for entrepreneurship, they can choose one area to receive specialised training," said Susila Mariappan, Director of University Students Advisory Bureau.

The women can directly contact the resource persons or approach the bureau for any training assistance, she said.

Once an entrepreneur gets her venture ready, the Canara Bank will offer financial assistance as seed money for the project.

M. Palaniappan, Deputy General Manager of Canara Bank (Circle Office), said that the bank's Can Mahila programme offered Rs. 50,000 as loan without surety for women entrepreneurs.

Frequent fairs

"We also have a frequent fairs, called the Can Bazaar, where the women can market their products," Mr. Palaniappan said. Madras University Registrar Anne Mary Fernandez said that the joint initiative was part of the university's "commitment to life-long learning". She stressed on quality control and professionalism as two key requirements for entrepreneurship.

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