The Ministry of Rural Development has launched a nationwide campaign to accelerate entrepreneurship among rural women, with a sharp focus on building large scale enterprise capacity under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana National Rural Livelihoods Mission. The National Campaign on Entrepreneurship was formally launched on 12 January 2026 as a key step towards expanding non farm livelihoods and achieving sustained income growth for women self help group members across rural India.
The campaign is anchored in the national vision of promoting rural women entrepreneurship under the theme Har Ghar Udyam Har Gaon Samriddh. It seeks to create a strong grassroots enterprise ecosystem by training community based cadres and equipping women with structured enterprise development skills.
The Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana National Rural Livelihoods Mission aims to bring transformational change in the income levels of rural women through diversified and sustainable livelihoods. Promotion of non farm rural enterprises has emerged as a critical pathway in this effort. Over the years, initiatives such as the Start up Village Entrepreneurship Programme have demonstrated that trained community cadres can successfully identify viable enterprises, support start ups, provide mentoring and ensure continuous handholding at the village level.
The Ministry has committed to enabling at least three crore Lakhpati Didis, defined as self help group women members earning one lakh rupees or more annually. Achieving this ambitious target requires rapid expansion and strengthening of the community resource person network to support enterprise promotion at scale.
The National Campaign on Entrepreneurship has been designed to address this requirement with clearly defined capacity building goals:
• Training of 50,000 community resource persons in enterprise promotion
• Enterprise Development Programme training for 50 lakh self help group members under DAY NRLM
The launch event was attended by senior stakeholders from across the rural development and livelihoods ecosystem, including representatives from NITI Aayog, NABARD, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, IFMR LEAD at KREA University, the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, the IIM Calcutta Innovation Park, and senior officials including SMDs and CEOs of State Rural Livelihoods Missions along with their teams.
The campaign provides a strategic platform to deepen enterprise development across India’s rural landscape by fostering local economic growth and unlocking the entrepreneurial potential of self help group women. By creating a large pool of trained community resource persons and equipping millions of women with enterprise skills, the initiative is expected to catalyse a new generation of rural entrepreneurs.
The campaign will also strengthen linkages between grassroots enterprises and formal financial institutions, improving access to enterprise credit and financial services. This approach is expected to contribute to the creation of a resilient, inclusive and self reliant non farm rural economy, aligned with national priorities on women led development and sustainable livelihoods.
