Eleven entrepreneurs bagged awards for building self-sustaining business enterprises via micro-credit, the Citi Foundation said on Friday.

The Citi Foundation, Citigroup's grant-making arm, said in a statement that the Citi Micro Entrepreneur Awards were classified in three distinct categories -- National Winner, National Runner-up and Social Responsibility. Women entrepreneurs showed tremendous response with nearly 50 per cent of all applications coming from female micro entrepreneurs.

Four national winners were: Ajambar Soi from Jharkhand, Sonaliben Rajebhai Parmar from Gujarat, Shahida Begum from Uttar Pradesh, and P J Varghese from Kerala. Each received a cash prize of Rs 2 lakh (Rs 200,000).

HDFC [Get Quote] chairman and member of the National Advisory Council for Citi Micro Entrepreneur Awards, Deepak Parekh, said these awards have played a key role in mainstreaming micro finance in a vast country like India.

Sharing of best practices through the awards will further encourage the delivery of microfinance in under-serviced regions.

Film actor and social activist Shabana Azmi congratulated the winners and said: "Citi Entrepreneur Awards are an excellent example of recognizing the true heroes of our country. I am truly impressed with the response from women entrepreneurs which has consistently grown over the last four years."

According to Citi, national runners-up were from Assam, Maharashtra, Delhi and Andhra Pradesh. The award for social responsibility was bagged by three entrepreneurs, one each from Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka.

Interestingly, except Delhi-based entrepreneur Kusum Tanwar, rest are from remote villages.

The Citi Micro Entrepreneur Awards programme is supported by the Citi Foundation through a grant of $200,000 to Partners in Change (PiC), a Delhi-based NGO which is the process implementation partner for the programme.