MSc

Lakshadweep is India’s smallest union territory located in Arabian Sea, comprises of
35 tiny coral islands with 32 sq. km area and a population of 64473 in the ten inhabited islands.
These inhabited islands are Agatti, Amini, Androth, Bitra, Chetlat, Kadmat, Kalpeni, Kavaratti,
Kilthan and Minicoy. Besides fishing and tourism, coconut cultivation, marketing and
processing of coconut constitute the major livelihood options of people of Lakshadweep.
According to Government of India (2011) Lakshadweep is having a population of 64473, and
out of this 31,350 are females with a literacy rate of 87.95 %. According to the annual report
of Department of women and child development (2019) there are 5057 women working under
435 self-help groups.
Women collective can be defined as a group of women who meet regularly to achieve
a shared purpose. These groups take many forms across the world like Self Help Groups
(SHGs), Joint liability Groups (JLGs) and Non-Governmental organizations (NGOs) where
women come together for different economic, legal, health and cultural reasons. In
Lakshadweep there are only two types of women collectives, they are SHGs and Dweepsrees
(Lakshadweep version of Kudumbasree).
Social entrepreneurship can be described as a business model for larger interest where
the members of community come together for fulfilling a social mission aiming for social
change and development. It functions as the agent of change, questioning the status quo,
grabbing the new yet overlooked opportunities by taking the local resources into consideration,
building on relations and by refining and re-refining to reach the grass roots.
The study was conducted in Lakshadweep islands. Three islands were selected from the
ten inhabited ones, Androth and Amini being the major islands and Chetlat, the minor one.
Sample size consisted of 120 respondents from women collectives and 30 facilitators.
Respondent’s category of women collectives belonged to the members of Self helf Groups
under Swayam Siddha and Dweepasree.
The profile of SHG members showed that 47.5% belonged to middle age category and
71.5% were home makers. Regarding educational qualification, 31.83% had attended higher
secondary level and 94% of them were having an annual income greater than 1 lakh rupees.
Majority of the respondents belonged to medium category for social participation, decision
making and innovativeness. Half of the selected respondents (50.84 %) had attended two
trainings.
Dimensions of social entrepreneurship were described with respect to social vision, social
network, innovativeness, sustainability and financial management. It was found that the SHG
members had the perception that social entrepreneurship could help them to attain a sustainable
livelihood. They felt that improvement in investment in entrepreneurial activities along with
the skills and trainings could improve their livelihoods. Spearman’s rank correlation analysis
of profile characteristics and perception on social entrepreneurship revealed that social
participation and innovativeness had significant positive correlation with social
entrepreneurship at 1% level, while decision making was significant at 5%level.
Along with these three variables, training exposure had a positive significant relationship
with the performance of SHGs. Performance of SHGs were measured using four indicators
viz;financial indicators, social up-liftment indicators, functional activities and selfdevelopment indicators. Analysis of the performance of SHGs in three islands using Kruskal
Wallis test, it was observed that Chetlat had the highest mean perception score (91.69)
compared to Amini (61.36) and Androth (28.45). With respect to the above four independent
variables significant differences were also observed among these three islands. Binary logistics
regression showed that social participation and social entrepreneurship had positive significant
relationship with performance of SHGs while occupation had a negative relationship.
Comparison of Group dynamics efficiency index ( GDEI )of three islands using Kruskal Wallis
test showed that there was no significant differences among the three islands where the mean
index being 66.60.
Factors affecting social entrepreneurship were categorized and studied under personal and
psychological, situational and socio- economic dimensions. Entrepreneurial motivation, social
acceptance and self-confidence were the most influencing elements of social entrepreneurship.
Challenges faced by SHG members were considered under three groups viz; individual
challenges, financial challenges and situational challenges. High cost of raw materials, high
market competition and lack of sufficient time for SHG involvement due to personal difficulties
were the most serious challenges felt by the SHG members from three islands that is Androth,
Amini and Chetlat. A significant value of Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (W = 0.935)
showed that there existed a strong agreement among the respondents and facilitators (W=
0.975).
It has been recommended that location specific entrepreneurial avenues and marketing
strategies may be implemented based on the production pattern of the particular area along
with awareness and training. Linkages with local shop owners and whole sellers should be
improved for getting various inputs and for marketing the products. It has been also suggested
that more infrastructural facilities have to be provided for proper storage and marketing.
Branding of the products highlighting the ethnicity may also be encouraged