Mr. Shreyas Kusur will present his MTP2 as per the details below:

Date: 29th June 2026

Time: 1130 – 1230 hrs.

Venue: C-TARA Conference Room No.2

Topic: Developing an integrated model for women entrepreneurs to take up higher order enterprises

Guide: Prof. Bakul Rao  

Examiners: Prof. Anish Modi, Prof. Parameshwar D. Udmale

Abstract: 

Women entrepreneurs in India comprise 26.2% of enterprise owners in the unincorporated sector, yet account for only 10.22% of turnover and 11.15% of investment in plant and machinery—a gap reflecting their concentration in low-value micro-enterprises. This thesis develops and validates an integrated model enabling women entrepreneurs’ transition to higher-order, MSME-classified enterprises, combining secondary data analysis with primary field evidence from Maharashtra.

Secondary analysis of the Annual Survey of Unincorporated Sector Enterprises (ASUSE), the Udyam Registration Portal, and case studies of successful women-led enterprises (Lijjat Papad, SEWA, Rangasutra, Varnam Tailoring) is triangulated with a primary survey of 28 women-led enterprises across Kolhapur city and the Saswad, Haveli, and Mulshi blocks of Pune district. Enterprises are examined across six business parameters—size, sector, location, productivity, growth, and survival—to identify the institutional mechanisms that enable or constrain enterprise scaling.

The central finding is that institutional ecosystem quality—not individual capability or sector choice—determines enterprise outcomes. The contrast between Kolhapur, where NGO-supported micro-credit operates without state infrastructure, and Pune district, where the five-tier UMED/MSRLM architecture provides coordinated credit, training, and market linkage, is visible across every parameter studied; non-farm income per SHG member is 73.5% lower in Kolhapur blocks. Eight interconnected barriers—cultural, social, financial, market access, literacy, legal, institutional fragmentation, and infrastructural—reinforce one another, requiring simultaneous rather than sequential intervention. A Community Resource Person “Dual Agency” effect, a ₹3–15 lakh “missing middle” capital gap, and the absence of a formal handoff between NGO-based entry programmes and the UMED scaling framework emerge as critical structural constraints.

Building on these findings, the thesis proposes an Integrated Framework for Scaling Pathways that augments MSRLM’s five thematic areas with enterprise-specific components and routes enterprises along three trajectories: Consolidation, formalising informal micro-enterprises; Transitional Scaling, addressing the missing middle through a proposed Women’s Enterprise Growth Loan, mechanisation support, and digital and B2B market integration; and Higher-Order Enterprise, supporting transition to MSME Medium or Producer Company status. The framework’s operational core is a Single Window Enterprise Support Centre at each block headquarters, co-staffed by UMED, MSME-DIC, DRDA, and a nodal bank, operationalising the NRLM–MSME convergence mandate at the level where enterprise transitions occur.

The thesis establishes that women entrepreneurs, when provided coordinated institutional support, achieve outcomes comparable to or superior to their male counterparts, and that their underrepresentation in higher-order enterprises reflects a deficit in institutional ecosystems rather than capability. A phased pilot is recommended across Pune district’s Saswad, Haveli, and Mulshi blocks and Kolhapur city, with implications for employment generation, household food security, and gender equality central to India’s inclusive development agenda.