Mr. Tanmay Mane will present his MTP2 as per the detail below:

Date:  Friday, 5th June, 2026 

Time: 1000 - 1045 hrs.

Venue: C-TARA Conference Room No.1

Title: Developing an Ecosystem for Food Processing Women Entrepreneurs in Convergence with MoFPI

Guide: Prof. Pennan Chinnasamy

Examiners: Prof. Eswar Rajasekaran, Prof. G. N. Hariharan

Abstract:

The Indian food processing sector holds considerable promise for women’s entrepreneurship. However, women-led enterprises remain concentrated primarily in subsistence activities, with limited opportunities for growth and expansion. According to a NSSO report (2015), nearly 25 lakh food processing enterprises are informal and unregistered; however, 74% of employment in the food processing sector comes from microenterprises. Almost 60% of microenterprises are located in rural areas, and among these, 80% are family-owned. To address this, it is crucial to foster an inclusive ecosystem that empowers women as dynamic economic agents rather than passive participants. In addition, only 17% of enterprises run and owned by women are large enough to employ workers, and within that, only 1% have the potential to scale up in India (Bain & Google, 2020). However, specifically, data tabled by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) in the Lok Sabha in August 2025 shows that more than 50% of PMFME beneficiaries are women, indicating that the sector is increasingly female-led and future-ready, with recent trends shifting in this direction. Drawing on mixed-methods field research conducted across five purposively selected districts of Maharashtra, Sangli, Satara, Sindhudurg, Jalna, and Nandurbar, spanning three distinct ecosystem archetypes (market-connected western belt, institutional innovation under agrarian distress, and tribal-dominated structural vulnerability), the study generates primary evidence through entrepreneur interviews, SHG federation diagnostics, institutional ecosystem mapping, and six in-depth case studies. The methodology integrates quantitative survey tools, qualitative case interviews, institutional ecosystem diagnostics, and value chain analysis across a purposive-stratified district selection designed to maximise analytical contrast over statistical representativeness. Seven structural themes are identified from the ground: the systematic feminisation of credit exclusion, the formalisation wall, the training paradox, production capability without a commercial channel, infrastructure absence as market exclusion, social capital friction, and the standardisation-scale ceiling. Cross-cutting synthesis reveals that these are not isolated barriers but interlocking components of a single systemic failure, the absence of operational convergence architecture between NRLM and MoFPI. Six case studies across the five districts spanning self-made market access, agricultural waste innovation, sequential capital models, federation-led processing, indigenous forest enterprises, and FPC-led institutional scale provide evidence of both the failure and the conditions under which it is overcome. The central contribution of this thesis is architectural, not legislative. It does not propose a new scheme to add to an already dense policy stack of seventeen central and state instruments. It delivers the implementation architecture specific institutional roles, handoff mechanisms, district-level routing, and procedural mandates that existing schemes assume but none provide. The primary output is eight evidence-based, operationally grounded recommendations designed for adoption by State Rural Livelihoods Missions in convergence with MoFPI's district-level implementation machinery.

Keywords: Women Entrepreneurship, Food Processing, Ecosystem, Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, Food Entrepreneurs, Self-Help Groups, Support Systems, NRLM, MoFPI, Rural Livelihoods