According to the Sixth economic Census (2013) unit level data, the total number of enterprises engaged in different agricultural and non-agricultural activities in india excluding crop production, plantation, public administration, defense and compulsory social security was 58.5 million. Majority of these enterprises over three quarters were involved in different non-agricultural activities while retail trade and manufacturing were dominant among them as both of these together constituted 58% of the total non-agricultural enterprises.
These non-agricultural enterprises further provided employment to 108.41 million persons but among them, only 33.04 million (25%) were women. It was also observed that most of these enterprises were operated under private ownership and within this, ‘own account establishment’ (i.e. establishment without any hired worker) were foremost.
Further, over the period 2005 to 2013, growth of own account establishment was higher relative to the growth of enterprises with hired workers. But gender disaggregated data provided a disquieting picture because only 8.05 million establishments were run by women entrepreneurs without any hired workers and they were majorly involved in livestock rearing, agricultural and manufacturing industries.
