Niti Aayog’s WEP Launches Its 1st State Chapter In Telangana

Hyderabad: The Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), an initiative by Niti Aayog, launched its first State Chapter in Telangana on Tuesday. In a move to expand WEP’s vision, the Telangana government announced plans to extend the platform to the mandal level by establishing physical and virtual single-window systems. These will support existing women entrepreneurs and guide aspiring businesswomen in overcoming challenges and starting their ventures.

Telangana Chapter of WEP and its logo was launched in the presence of BVR Subrahmanyam, CEO, Niti Aayog; Jayesh Ranjan, Special Chief Secretary, Telangana IT department; Sangita Reddy, Co-Chair, WEP and JMD – Apollo Hospitals Group; Anna Roy, Mission Director, WEP; Sita Pallacholla, CEO, We Hub and other chiefs of industry bodies.

Speaking at the launch, BVR Subrahmanyam urged all women business groups in the city to create awareness about WEP by reaching out to women entrepreneurs across the urban and rural pockets. He also advised the State government to replicate WEP’s two initiatives - Award to Reward, that recognises women entrepreneurs, and take the idea of entrepreneurship to youngsters at colleges.

On WEP’s vision, he said, “Launched in 2018 by the Government of India, WEP has been successful in onboarding 30,000 women entrepreneurs and their groups as members. WEP and We Hub has been operating on the lines of handholding, mentorship, networking, marketing, guidance to scale up business and others. Hence, we have joined forces for the launch of our first State Chapter.”

With WEP entering the State, the government is aligning its plans with Niti Aayog’s WEP, to boost women entrepreneurship, Jayesh Ranjan said. He informed that, going ahead, the government will set up physical and virtual presence of WEP at the mandal level. He further added, “We want to convert WEP in Telangana as a single window for extending support to all women interested in taking up entrepreneurship or the existent entrepreneurs. Weekly once, WEP representative will be physically present at these open door spaces. Effort will be made to resolve challenges at the mandal level, otherwise it will be escalated to the district level and later State.”

To increase the benefit of WEP in Telangana, Ranjan suggested onboarding their national resource organisations, here. He also urged Niti Aayog to bring in other programmes which can make significant difference for rural communities and the poor.

Co-Chair of WEP, Sangitha Reddy, asked entrepreneurs to sign up for the programme as WEP mentorship platform today has 430 mentors from 23 States, she highlighted. She also advised WEP to link with Tech Equity, an initiative supported by Google which gives technology related training for entrepreneurs. Raising a concern about procurement quota on GeM (Government e-Marketplace), a national public procurement portal, she requested Niti Aayog CEO to look into the matter of raising the quota of procuring women-made products and services from about four per cent to 10 per cent.

Addressing the gathering, Anna Roy informed that the platform is now available in 10 regional languages, including Telugu. On a query about the number of women entrepreneurs WEP is looking to onboard in Telangana, she said, “WEP Telangana Chapter has been launched based on Hub and Spoke model. The first Spoke has been launched today, we hope to launch similar spokes in other States. And from those Spokes the second round of Spokes at mandal level will be introduced that is the how the network will be built. Firstly, we want to create the pool factor where people come and join as they are gaining out of it.”