Women-led Businesses Fostering the Growth of Entrepreneurship in India - Shashank Mani

Like every year, this year also the world's largest entrepreneurial train journey, Jagriti Yatra is going on a national odyssey with the resolve of “building India through enterprise”. Since this year’s yatra is being organised in Amrit Kaal, it has been named as “Jagriti Amrit Kaal Yatra”. On Thursday, Yatra’s halt was in Delhi. All the Yatris reached Goonj and saw their amazing work. Goonj’s chief Anshu Gupta, while addressing the Yatris, gave detailed information about the work done for public service during the Corona period. 

Shri. Shashank Mani, Founder Jagriti Enterprise Center, Purvanchal

Thereafter, all the Yatris reached the Kamani Auditorium where Shashank Mani, the founder of Jagriti Yatra said that the increasing participation of women-led enterprises in the country is a positive sign for the economy. The growth in the last few years is attributed to the work done by the Ministry of Entrepreneurship, in which priority was given to women. Jagriti Yatra is running for the last 14 years from December 24 to January 08 with the resolve of building India through enterprise. He said that on the 73rd Independence Day, from the ramparts of Red Fort, Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi gave a clarion call for every Indian to visit at least 15 tourist destinations across India and make innovation and research a lifestyle while on the 75th Independence day, Prime Minister shared ‘panchpran’ every Indian must focus on in the years to come to transform India into a developed nation. We have been implementing this call through Yatra for the last 14 years. As you know India is the third largest startup hub in the world, in the past 14 years Jagriti has created and fostered more than 1000 entrepreneurs who are running their own startups and have influenced more than 7000 people to join the “udyamita movement”. 

Banyan Revolution which is inspired by the banyan tree located in Gram Sabha Barpar, in this revolution entrepreneurship centres will be opened in Deoria, Nagpur, Ganjam and Kanyakumari along with a research centre in Mumbai. We aim to impact around 3 crore people through this revolution and with it invest 5-6 thousand crores for enterprises. This campaign for entrepreneurship should reach the masses, but it is not possible without your cooperation. The Jagriti team cordially invites you to the press conference tomorrow, please be our ally in this unique initiative of nation-building by attending this press conference. 

A panel discussion was organized during the event which included Niharika Rajeev, Partner, Incube Angel Network, Ritika Mahbubani, MSME Advisor, Zoho, and Vaishali Sagar, Startup Ramp Lead, Amazon Web Services. Along with this, the winners of the BGT competition held at Deoria in Uttar Pradesh on January 3 were announced. The next stop of the yatra is Rajasthan, where Bunker Roy will host the yatra in Tilonia. 

Introduction to the Yatra - Jagriti Yatra takes 500 youths from India and abroad on a national odyssey from 24th December to 08th January. The main objective of the yatra is to build India through enterprise. In this journey, we meet and learn from successful social entrepreneurs who have set up and successfully run their ventures and are providing self-employment. The Yatra has been operating for the last 14 years, with a pool of over 7000 alumni formed through it. 40 per cent of these alumni are women and 28 per cent have set up their own enterprises.