In Nuh’s Tauru, a workplace is helping women rewrite their futures

Sherry Sudan, 43, has created a workplace where women learn to read and write, gain skills, earn, and become financially independent.

In Tauru, a village in Haryana’s Nuh district long known for its deep-rooted gender inequality, a private company is sparking a quiet revolution.

Sherry Sudan established Cleanex India Pvt Ltd in Tauru in 2020, a company that manufactures tissue rolls, napkins, face tissues, and other packaging materials, with most of the work carried out by women. (HT Photo)

Sherry Sudan, 43, has created a workplace where women learn to read and write, gain skills, earn, and become financially independent.

Sudan wants the women to acquire the confidence needed to navigate the world outside their homes.

She established Cleanex India Pvt Ltd in Tauru in 2020, a company that manufactures tissue rolls, napkins, face tissues, and other packaging materials, with most of the work carried out by women.

Of its workforce of 75, around 60 are women. They are not restricted to one kind of job. Women work on the production floor, operate machines and take on responsibilities that allow them to learn and progress.

Sudan has also consciously opened the workplace to women who often find it particularly difficult to return to employment — including widows and divorced.

Some of the women who arrive have had limited access to formal education. Sudan helps them acquire basic skills—from learning to sign their names to handling everyday responsibilities.

For many women from economically weaker families, leaving home to work also means balancing employment with responsibilities towards their children. Sudan has tried to make that transition easier by ensuring that the women have meals at the workplace and, where possible, can take food home for their children.

Sudan moved to Gurugram from Kanpur in 2009. Her professional journey took her through different assignments before she eventually set up Cleanex India.

Her decision to establish the company in Tauru was not simply a business choice. It also allowed her to reach women in an area where employment opportunities remain limited.

She saw a large pool of women willing to work but who had never been given the opportunity or training to do so.

Today, at her company, women can be seen at different points in the operation—from the security gate to the production floor and positions involving greater responsibility. What began as an effort to provide jobs has gradually evolved into an ecosystem of learning, earning and self-reliance.

In Tauru, Sudan has turned a manufacturing unit into something larger than a business.

She says her biggest achievement is that the women entering that doorway are not simply being given work. They are being allowed to learn, earn, stand on their own feet and change the possibilities available to the next generation.