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Business not as usual?

Delhiite Irfan Alam's novel idea helps him win the Zee Baazigar Award. RANA SIDDIQUI reports

RICKSHAW TO THE LUXURY LANE Irfan Alam has beaten two lakh candidates to bag the award

If the word, `excitement' could be re-christened, the tiebreaker round at the finals of Business Baazigar held in Mumbai this past week would have qualified for the slot. The move of the jury to have three contestants instead of two in the final round of this reality show took the crowd by surprise.

And finally after a neck-and-neck fight between Kolkata's Ali Ismail, Chandigarh's Puneet and Delhi's Irfan Alam, Alam bagged the title of `Business Baazigar'. It came with rumours though.

Wild card entry

Alam, a 25-year-old MBA from Pondicherry University, was a wild card entry in the finals, which was initially to be contested between Ali and Puneet. He is now the proud owner of a trophy, a certificate and a cheque of Rs.50 lakh, the amount that he had asked from Zee to convert his idea into a reality. Something he has already partially achieved, by converting a cycle rickshaw into an environment-friendly luxury vehicle. It's a project given the go-ahead even by the Delhi Chief Minster Sheila Dikshit. In a close competition, in which even the audience voted for Puneet (47 per cent), followed by Ali (30 per cent) and Alam (23 per cent), the jury — comprising Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Zee Network, Passionfunds CEO Mahesh Murthy, and IIM, AhmedabadProfessor Anil Gupta — surprised all by choosing Alam after the rapid fire round. Ali's business idea, maintenance of optical cable fibre across the country, and Puneet's idea of converting waste material, particularly mineral water bottles, into objects of utility, could notsatisfy the jury.

"The competition was about bringing out a novel business idea. And Irfan Alam's idea is original. Many others are already into what Ali and Puneet had to offer," reasoned Chandra.

"Popular awards cannot be converted into business awards. Irfan has used a domestic idea and everything need not be international to prove its worth," Murthy chipped in. "Ali and Puneet couldn't convince the business analyst in me. They didn't have a vision. When there is such a large amount of money involved, every aspect of a business idea has to be worked upon. Aren't we exporting rickshaws to England? We can export Irfan's rickshaw too," said Professor Gupta.

This big budget reality show that provides a platform to fund the bestbusiness idea attracted two lakh entries from across India.

Out of these, 50 were short-listed. Twenty of them went on air after further evaluation, and out of those, two finalists, Ali and Puneet, might have just managed to bag the crown when Alam was entered as the third finalist.

Partiality?

After the results were announced, a shell-shocked Ali was seen criticising the jury: "Everyone knows who is the actual `baazigar'. Irfan took one year to reach my level. He made only 30 rickshaws in one-and-a-half years, which is not a big deal. The jury is partial towards him because of the presence of Gupta. IIM has funded his project by giving an order of Rs.60 Lakh. If the contest didn't have a wild card entry system, Irfan would never have made it." Puneet chipped in, "The jury failed to realise that if Irfan makes 80 such luxury rickshaws, he will render 9,20,000 common rickshaw pullers unemployed."

But Irfan had an answer ready. "IIM is not a funding agency. So how can it fund my project? I got a project of Rs.60 lakh from the Hindustan Times after I did well in my pilot project of Rs.50,000 which Zee gave me to prove my business capability. I went to IIM as a part of the Management Development Programme (MDP) and it was a part of the TV show. I sought advice from Dr. Piyush K. Sinha, a faculty member with IIM, and not Professor Gupta. But they all encouraged me to go ahead with my socio-economic project. I have been working on it for four years anyway. Who stopped Ali or Puneet from going ahead with their projects?"

Meanwhile a shocked Professor Gupta said, "Everybody was free to seek my advice. I have always backed novel ideas. I encouraged Viny (Mini Baazigar awardee) also to go ahead with whatever meagre funds she had. And if somebody thinks that making such rickshaws will not change the face of the society, it is only perpetuating mediocrity and poverty. Old rickshaw pullers will have to make a transit to the new one to remain in the fray."

Amid those moments of glee and gloom, Puneet and Ali were seen asking the jury in a secluded corner, `Sir, where did I go wrong... '

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