Pooja Sharma, a native of Bakra village of Haryana was married off at the age of 20.

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She soon gave birth to two daughters and a son and the family started struggling financially, owing to increased expenses.

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She and her husband separated from the joint family and borrowed money from friends and family to buy an empty plot on the outskirts of the village.

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She recalls how in 2013 some officials from Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) approached the villagers to offer lessons in sewing.

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However, she told the officials that sewing would not help increase women’s income significantly. They needed something unique.

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A few days later, the KVK officials returned with a suggestion of training women to prepare and sell roasted soybeans as a healthy snack.

“I was given the task to identify 10 women willing to undergo training for a week in Gurugram,” Pooja says.

Pic source: UN 

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“After their selection and training, we needed equipment like a microwave oven and capital to buy raw materials to start the business.”

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Pooja managed to get a loan of Rs 10,000 from a private bank to launch their venture — Kshitiz group. However, since the husbands resisted the women’s employment, Pooja had to do a lot of convincing.

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“Finally, I convinced my husband by assuring him that the venture would help increase income and benefit our children. He gradually started accompanying me to purchase raw materials and market them too,” she says.

Pooja says the women started offering their product, roasted soybean, in exhibitions and local markets. But they realised the need for presenting a wide variety of products.

In time, they started preparing laddoos, cookies made from wheat, soy sticks and items made from bajra, jowar, among others.

Pooja says that all the raw material for the production is sourced from local farmers.

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At the time of this article, Pooja shared that she had formed nine groups of 130 women who prepared 60 varieties of homemade food products.

She also added that the cookies and biscuits have a high demand in five-star hotels like Hyatt, Aerocity and others.

Pooja also reached out to women from Madhya Pradesh and parts of the country to train them in the snack business and has trained thousands.

The Haryana government appreciated Pooja’s contribution towards empowering women.

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What is fascinating is that the manufacturing unit was set up in what the villagers called a “haunted house”.

While initially, the products prepared by the women received a lot of stigma due to this, today it has ebbed. Pooja says that what residents considered an inauspicious place has proven to be a prosperous prospect for her and hundreds of others.

Pic source: Global Communities

“I believe that hard work and sincerity can ward off any negativity,” she says.

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