• Dr. Navtika Singh
• Shuchita Agarwal

Dalit in India is a powerful segment in terms of population, vote bank and workforce but in business is very rare due to social structure of the country which depresses these people whenever they come up in life. Development of economy of any nation depends primarily on the important role played by entrepreneurs. Dalit entrepreneurs are the persons belonging to dalit community who initiate, organize and operate a business enterprise. In order to eradicate the caste disease step-by-step, the State is called upon to play an active role in the process by provision of economic support through loans and regulation of markets to Dalit, the emphasis is on development of entrepreneurial culture that can enable Dalits to participate in the private sector and informal economy on equal term. In spite of the earnest and consecutive efforts by the governments, the share of Dalits in firm ownership and employment generation has not been up to the mark. The result of various researches depicts that lack of finance, marketing opportunity, low profit, inadequate credit facility, cut-throat competition are the major barriers faced by the dalit entrepreneurs. A dalit can become an entrepreneur is still challengeable in the modern day society, due to the social system of the country. From origin itself dalits are oppressed by upper caste people through socio-religious sentiments. The Government of India for the first time, provided for notification of socially disadvantaged castes as ‘scheduled caste’ and a list of such castes was accordingly notified in the Government of India. Thus the scheduled castes category initially comprised castes that were isolated and disadvantaged. While it is significant that there is now an emerging section of Dalit entrepreneurs, we find that most Dalit businesses occupy a very different place in the production chain, viz., that they are engaged in the bottom-of-the-ladder, low productivity, survival activities, as can be seen from our estimates of their lower rate of growth, after controlling for other characteristics. Thus, we find that entrepreneurship as a vehicle for social mobility for Dalits is yet to become a reality for India. It is believed that “Dalit Capitalism” will help dalits rise to the top of the social pyramid, and pave the way for the end of the caste system. We believe that in order to understand the spread of “Dalit Capitalism”, it is not enough to focus on the top-end of dalit businesses, but instead to investigate the extent and spread of dalit participation in small businesses, which more accurately reflect the material conditions of millions of dalits not in wage employment. In India dalit have made a comparatively late entry into business scenario mainly due to the orthodox and traditional socio-cultural environment. Dalits lacked economic resources, but even when they had economic resources they were crippled by a lack of social resources. However, even though it is true across the entire spectrum of Dalits, it varied quite significantly across different caste communities

Dalit Entrepreneurs, Dalit, Domination, Entrepreneur, social structure

"Entrepreneurship: A study on different socio economic challenges faced by Dalit Enterprises", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 5, page no.694-701, MAY-2018, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1805857.pdf

"Entrepreneurship: A study on different socio economic challenges faced by Dalit Enterprises", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.5, Issue 5, page no. pp694-701, MAY-2018, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR1805857.pdf