How she helped 120 local women to be self-dependent

Hyderabad: A 30-year old lady based out of Nizamabad turns a role model to many young women in rural areas who look up to her as an entrepreneur and job-creator. Though she discontinued her studies after Class 7 due to financial problems in her family, she started her own tailoring business enterprise, which now employs over 120 women from nearby villages and towns.

Few years ago, Latha Nadukuda took a gold loan to launch her own garments' unit near her house, and began making women's innerwear, sleepwear and house-wear, among various other types of apparel. Very soon, a plethora of B2C orders kept coming in and she was unable to manage everything on her own. She hired local women as employees, and gave training them to do the work.

She founded Shree Latha Garments and Ladies Tailors to take up multiple orders of stitching uniforms for local government schools. Her husband, who previously worked as a home guard, had a good rapport with the local Police Departments and this in turn enabled her to get large orders for police uniforms.

During the pandemic period, she started getting orders for making masks from local SHGs and for PPE kits from local government hospitals as well as private hospitals in Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana. Shree Latha Garments has grown to accommodate over 120 employees. While 20 per cent of all the resource persons are currently working from their factory, the rest are working from their homes.

Latha and her husband have equipped these women by buying each of them a sewing machine and giving them detailed training on the kind of work that needs to be done. After acquiring the skill set, many of these women have even started replicating Latha's business model on a smaller scale and getting orders on their own.

"With the growing reputation of the products crafted by Shree Latha Garments, more government orders came in, the business keeps growing substantially. Even during the Covid outbreak last year, all of our employees were working from home and having a steady source of income, with some of them earning up to Rs. 1.5 lakh per month," Latha informed.

Latha is creating a "ripple effect" - helping so many local women earn a livelihood on their own and become 'self-dependent' or Aatmanirbhar over a period of time. In the near future, she wants to scale up her business by taking Shree Latha Garments and Ladies Tailors beyond the boundaries of Telangana, to various other parts of India, and thereby establish a solid brand name for her enterprise.

Latha was also a part of Project Her&Now's entrepreneurship support programme in Telangana in 2020. 'Her&Now - Empowering Women Entrepreneurs', is implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and in partnership with India's Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

In Telangana, the project is running in partnership with WE Hub. Speaking about her association with Project Her&Now, Latha says, "With the help of the mentors of Her&Now, I learnt a lot about the right kind of business strategies, accounting, digital inclusion and much more. The programme also empowered us to become more confident and outgoing and future-ready."