JAMMU: Nadiya Farooq, a girl from Baderwah of Doda district, was honored on this year’s International Women’s day by J&K Rural Livelihoods Mission (JKRLM), as a successful entrepreneur.
Nadiya might not have amassed fortunes yet but she has definitely ventured into something many of the city youth hesitate to take chance into.
It was back in 2014 when Nadiya realized that struggling for gaining a government job is not prudent. She said that, earlier, she also felt tizzy about the chances of success her enterprise was going to meet but her mentoring organization, JKRLM, popularly called Umeed helped her here to get past this anxiety.
Nadiya said that when she was approached by the resource persons of Umeed initially she was not sure of joining it for the purpose of making her career. She only went for counseling sessions as others were going as well. She said, “But these sessions were turning point for her”. It was after listening to these counselors of Umeed that she saw a ray of hope in entrepreneurship. She added that it is the confidence enthused by Umeed that sets her boat of vocation to sail.
Nadiya didn’t aim for something ordinary. She wanted the wheel of her fortune to excel in detergent soap business. Nadiya had her unit of soap making set up in Baderwah after her successful handholding and training by her mentoring organization. JKRLM not only provided her necessary assistance for start-up but also provided her the requisite training in creating the product she proudly sells under the brand name ‘Centwin’.
The girl said that her venture is a female enterprise adding that she craftily does much of the work herself along with half a dozen of her female workers. She added that the business is fully owned and run by these half a dozen females except for transportation of raw material and the finished product which is being done by a couple of male coworkers hired by them.
Nadiya arranges ingredients for her detergent soaps herself. She said that the sodium bicarbonates, sulphates and other combinations used as raw materials for her Centwin are to be fetched from outside J&K. She added that despite high transportation costs of raw material reaching Baderwah, her soaps are good in quality and inexpensive than other brands.
She said that her reach is not yet far off as she delivers her product in the vicinity only. She mentioned, “We are able to sell some 5-6000 bars a month and these are enough to fetch us an income of Rs25-30000 to be distributed among us”.
Nadiya claimed that her unit is still in infancy and they have a lot to achieve saying that proper branding, packaging and marketing can work wonders for her product. She said that it is only a word of mouth and our individual efforts in our town that have produced these results. “Adequate mechanization and other logistics can produce totally different results”, she asserted.
Nadiya also lamented that lack of round the clock power supply is also playing spoil sport. She said that in order to expand and reach out to other markets both mechanization of all the processes along with a dedicated power supply are prerequisite. She admitted that a lot more needs to be done before making CENTWIN a household name in J&K. She said that she is hopeful and determined to achieve the goal in future adding that she was quite hopeful of all support from JKRLM (Umeed) in realizing her dreams. She was optimistic that she would surely come up with flying colours with the wings given by Umeed.

KR Desk