Social entrepreneurship – a pathway for potential development of rural areas in Tamil Nadu, India

Background:
Entrepreneurship common phenomenon is a systematic application of knowledge, ideas, skills and opportunities by an individual and or group of persons forming an enterprise to achieve the economic growth and development of a society. The Social entrepreneurship on the other hand attempts to solve the social issues and challenges prevailing in the society (Shrivastava, P., & Kumar, V. (2020).). A desired change can be achieved by a social entrepreneur through entrepreneurial principles and goals. Social entrepreneur mainly focuses on sustainable development of the society by solving social problems and cause for social change (Muenjohn, N., & Armstrong, A., 2018). India is having world’s second largest labour force of 516.3 million people and out of which as per the latest report of the World Bank nearly 350 million people in India live below the poverty line. This shows that every third Indian is living with inadequacy of basic necessities like food, education and health, etc. The Government alone cannot full fill all the shortcomings of providing basic necessities to this poverty sections of the society. The social entrepreneurship in this regard can change the dimensions of the society in India by elevating poor people and help to uplift the society (Rathore, S. S., & Bhatnagar, S., 2015). Due to growing number of populations, the Indian Government takes many initiatives like home care for child and aging people, forming welfare association for pension holders, insurance schemes for farmers, etc. (Bulsara et al., 2015). But it is not sufficient to meet all the requirements of the people those who are economically weaker sections of the society (Vats, A., & Gupta, S., 2018; Tandon, A., & Dhir, A., 2017).). Hence, it is of prime importance for the people those who are come forward by forming associations, self-help groups by mobilising the resources by way of organising social entrepreneurship team. Hence, the present study made an attempt to analyzing the problems and prospects of the social entrepreneurship and the benefits availed by the rural people for their betterment of life. Further, potential possibilities for the growth of rural areas in Tamil Nadu has also been considered for analysis in this study.

Methods:
The present study is conducted with a main objective of analysing the potential possibilities of rural development by exploring the prospects of social entrepreneurship in rural areas of Tamil Nadu, India. The geographical area of Tamil Nadu covering 38 district is taken as Universe. The rural areas among these districts are drawn on stratified sampling technique and the required data are collected using questionnaire by identifying the social entrepreneurs. A well-structured questionnaire in this regard is developed and administered among the social entrepreneurs of the sampling area. The responses by the respondents for the questions included in the questionnaire are recorded qualitatively and using the SPSS package the qualitative data are converted into quantitative data for statistical analysis purposes. Thus, all the data were subject to statistical analysis with appropriate statistical tools in order to drawn major findings of the study as outcome and arriving out implications of the study.

Results:
The proposed study on social entrepreneurship and its potential viabilities for development of rural areas of Tamil Nadu portrays the results of the study in to two groups. These are results of problems and prospects of social entrepreneurs, and results of benefits and developments achieved by the beneficiaries out of social entrepreneurship. The interim result of the study shows that the social entrepreneurs are facing the problems in terms of mobilising the resources, identifying the beneficiaries and organising the people to form the social entrepreneurship group. The results according to the beneficiaries of social entrepreneurship reveals that lacking proper awareness of social entrepreneurs, approachability, believability, and stability on social entrepreneurs for availing continuous services. However, major findings of the study reveals that there are possibilities to overcome the problems faced by the social entrepreneurs as well as beneficiaries of social entrepreneurship by providing awareness and education about the schemes and benefits available under the social entrepreneurship.

Implications:
The major findings of the study suggests that social entrepreneurship in Tamil Nadu is a concept that is slowly growing, and it has to be well established by promoting its prospects among the rural areas. The study has several implications to several stakeholders such as the government, NGO’s, social entrepreneurs, and the public. It is also found that many of the economically weaker sections of the people in the rural areas of Tamil Nadu still hesitate to come forward to avail the benefits of social entrepreneurship because of the fact that there is no nomenclature and government regulations for streamlining the social entrepreneurship concept. Hence, it is strongly suggested that the government should take efforts to promote the private organisation to form the social entrepreneurship team and adopt the villages to avail the benefits such as basic necessities, health care and educational facilities etc. Further, from this study it is found that level of awareness about social entrepreneurships is still in basic level and hence promotion campaign, wide publicity should be given by the government as well as social entrepreneurs among the rural areas. This will enhance the poor and needy people to get explore about the social entrepreneurship. Thus, the present study is made an attempt to evaluate the growing concept of social entrepreneurship in Tamil Nadu and by its major findings and outcomes necessary efforts are being taken to derive a model for further development of the concept of social entrepreneurship in rural areas of Tamil Nadu.