Building Human Capital Through Entrepreneurship Education for Microenterprise Development: A Case Study of ABC Company

Indian economy is considered to be one of the largest agrarian economies of the world. In the year 2007-08, agriculture sector contributed approximately 17.8 percent of India’s GDP (at constant 1999-2000 prices) and 12.2 percent of total exports. According to 2001 census, this sector provides employment to 58.2 percent work force of India (Annual Report, Ministry of Agriculture, 2009). Limited resources, erratic rainfall, climatic hazards, and fragmented landholdings are some of the major factors associated with low agricultural productivity, leading to low profit for farmers which results in unemployment and underemployment for vast section farmers especially small and marginal farmers. Most of the Indian agriculture is rainfed and unable to provide sustainable income generation round the year. In this situation, selfemployment in general and microenterprise in particularis evolving as a prospective option for livelihood and income generation. Lack of skill has been identified as one of the key hindrance in promoting microenterprises among poor. Various initiatives by various organisations have been taken to promote entrepreneurship among poor. This paper is an attempt to document one of the successful experiences in providing training to the poor with the objectives of promoting self-employment. The study concludes that provision of training alone does not help in promoting entrepreneurship due to lack of access to finance.