Tamil Nadu launches exclusive women’s Startup Mission; monthly aid for women homemakers

In a significant move towards promoting women’s entrepreneurship in the state, Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, Finance Minister of Tamil Nadu, on Monday established an exclusive Startup Mission for women during his budget presentation for FY23-24. 

“Women entrepreneurs continue to face difficulties in accessing adequate, timely credit, and marketing of products. To address these challenges, the government will establish an exclusive Startup Mission for women, which will facilitate women entrepreneurs in all aspects of their business,” Rajan said.

Although the details are yet to be finalised, Sivarajah Ramanathan, Mission Director and Chief Executive Officer of Tamil Nadu Startup and Innovation Mission, told HerStory, “Through this mission, we are focusing on amalgamating the present initiatives with many new ones.”

According to a study conducted by the IIT-Madras, Tamil Nadu has the maximum number of women entrepreneurs in the country.

Ramanathan says that most women in the state own micro-enterprises, and through the mission, it is “looking at encouraging women entrepreneurs and providing them with the necessary assistance to scale their businesses and redefine their business models, with a special focus on women entrepreneurs in tech.”

In the same vein, he added, “For Tamil Nadu to achieve its target of a $1 trillion economy by 2030, women’s participation is important, which will push more women to get into the startup ecosystem.”

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Meanwhile, realising the key poll promise of the DMK government, the state has allotted Rs 7,000 crore in the budget to roll out Rs 1,000 monthly cash allowance for eligible women homemakers. 

The government plans to use a data-driven approach by creating a database based on necessary economic and social conditions to identify eligible women homemakers.

“Women heads of families, who have been affected adversely by the steep increase in cooking gas price by the Union government and the overall price rise, will greatly benefit from this scheme,” the minister said in his Budget speech.

Chief Minister M K Stalin will launch the scheme on September 15, the birth anniversary of DMK Founder and former chief minister C N Annadurai.

On the startup front, the state’s Startup TN initiative will also help local incubators, specialising in climate tech, rural tech, agritech, and marine tech sectors, set up Centres of Excellence, for which the state government will bear up to 40% of the costs. 

Tamil Nadu, home to one of the country’s largest numbers of business incubators, plans to set up a separate vertical within the Startup TN scheme to further the incubator ecosystem in the state.