A winner of the Outstanding Women Entrepreneur Award of the Federation of Indian Chambers for Commerce and Industry (FICCI) for 2002-2003, Manju is one of the few people who have entered the heartland of the traditional crafts of chikankari and zardozi in Uttar Pradesh and secured business for the Muslim women there.

The FICCI award took her by surprise. "FICCI had invited entries and I applied. Later, I was told that only group entries were being considered. I was in Delhi for an exhibition when I got to know that I had bagged the award after all," she says.