India continues to be a land of opportunities offering excellent scope for those who want to turn entrepreneur. However, despite initiatives taken by the government, new business registrations in India have not kept pace with the size of India's economy and population that has crossed 130 crore. We are still way behind and ranked much lower in the world's most innovative and successful entrepreneurial ventures.A recent report by the World Bank says that India can grow in double-digits if more women participate in the product line of the Indian economy. Despite odds, there are many thousands of women in India who have done big and have excelled as entrepreneurs and have inspired and been role models. What the country needs is more of such women entrepreneur who can drive the economy ahead.Of all leading nations, India has the youngest population in the world where over 50 per cent of its population (total population over 130 crore) with an estimated 470 million people of working age, according to the National Sample Survey Office.So we should have excelled. But, what is pulling us back?Amongst many contentious issues, women in India have not got the place they deserve. They have been a neglected lot. They contribute to over 45 per cent of the country's population. And over two-third of them are not directly involved in the productive workforce. So when the women workforce is not rationally put to service of the nation, we are killing half of the productive workforce, of whom many can turn entrepreneurs.Women are discouraged from going into business. Women as entrepreneurs in India face challenges in setting up and growing their businesses and scaling up the ladder globally in one of the world's key rapid growth economies.They hardly have access to training besides low rate of financial literacy and a gap in financing for women entrepreneurs operating beyond the micro level, women in India have difficulty in getting loans to develop their businesses. Even if they manage to secure loans, many struggle to manage it.The business culture in India is dominated by males and there is little for women entrepreneurs for effective networking that supports business advice, mentoring, learning and creating resources.The role of women entrepreneur in economic development is inevitable. Driving entrepreneurship will be key to India's economic growth. Promoting entrepreneurship is crucial at this juncture when India is positioning itself as a world leader in business and trade. As of now, entrepreneurship in India is still dominated by small business and enterprises who account for over 75 per cent of employment in the manufacturing sector and dominate over 90 per cent of the establishments across the country.And to push for creating a big pool of entrepreneurship, women need to be empowered and create a favourable ecosystem, build up and facilitate women to grow as entrepreneurs. The improved rankings in 'Ease of Doing Business in India' will further help and support in creating a sizeable base of entrepreneurs in India.Since the economic liberalization in 1991, the government has come up with many policy initiatives to promote entrepreneurship and growth. Governments and many do work and support women entrepreneurship to promote overall growth but that has to be adequately monitored. In India, the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises development organisations, various State Small Industries Development Corporations, the nationalised banks and even NGOs are conducting various programmes including Entrepreneurship Development Programmes (EDPs) to cater to the needs of potential women entrepreneurs, who may not have adequate educational background and skills.There are also several other schemes of the government at central and state level, which provide assistance for setting up training and income generating activities for needy women to make them economically independent. Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) too has also been implementing special schemes for women entrepreneurs. In addition to the special schemes for women entrepreneurs, various government schemes for MSMEs also provide certain special incentives and concessions for women entrepreneurs. For instance, under Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (PMRY), preference is given to women beneficiaries.The government has also made several relaxations for women to facilitate the participation of women beneficiaries in this scheme. At present, the government has over 27 schemes for women operated by different departments and ministries. Some of these are Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP), Khadi And Village Industries Commission (KVIC), Training of Rural Youth for Self-Employment (TRYSEM), Prime Minister's Rojgar Yojana (PMRY), Entrepreneurial Development programme (EDPs), Management Development progammes, Womens Development Corporations (WDCs), Marketing of Non-Farm Products of Rural Women (MAHIMA), NGOs Credit Schemes, Micro & Small Enterprises Cluster Development Programmes (MSE-CDP) amongst others.So the focus should be on small savings of rural areas that contribute more in establishing the small and micro enterprises in India. Many sectors like artisanship can create a pool of women entrepreneurship that will usher in a change in the way we do business and build up a pool of entrepreneurs, with women equally sharing this platform. These are issues which requires to be addressed is it will help in building up a bigger platform for entrepreneurs which will give a big push to India's economy and infrastructure development.The writer is Co-Founder, MobiKwik