Boot polish to big bucks

Business magazine editor Arundhati Dutta wants to set up India's largest retail online mall so that people from any part of the country can just log on and order just about anything at the click of a mouse button.

Sales manager with a shipping company Partho Ghosh wants to sell mineral water in small cups on a mass scale.

Nineteen-year-old Ashwini Diwan's wants to launch a commercial website where people can win items for Rs 10.

Arundhati, Partho and Ashwini are the three Calcuttans among 20 Indians trying to become Business Baazigar in the latest reality show on Zee TV. With a budget of Rs 11 crore, the 24-episode Business Baazigar, hosted by MTV funnyman Cyrus Sahukar, is also one of the costliest shows to come out from the Zee stable. Starting March 31, every Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, the show which has a tagline of "Idea lao, paise le jao", will fund the business venture of the eventual winner.

"Nothing like this has ever been tried before anywhere in the world," Ashish Kaul, senior vice-president of Zee Network, told Metro. "The basic concept is to empower an Indian to realise his dream, who in turn will not only be able to change his destiny but also that of the society around him. Business Baazigar should start, what we are calling, meaningful television."

Once Business Baazigar was launched some time in late 2004, entries just kept flying in, thick and fast. "We got 200 entries on the very first day and a total of two lakh entries," Kaul revealed. "Then it became a huge and arduous task to sort out the entries and after a lot of screening we brought the number down to 250. After a round of video-conferencing, we shortlisted 50 entrants who were then flown down to Mumbai."

Here, the jury — Zee Telefilms chairman Subhash Chandra, Passionfunds CEO Mahesh Murthy and IIM Ahmedabad professor Anil Gupta — took over completely. They met the 50 aspirants, heard out their ideas and finally picked the Top 20 amongst them. These 20 ideators, coming in from different parts of the country, will then face off on the sets of the show as they try and impress the jury at every step.

"The contestants will be given small tasks on every show," Kaul added. "They may be given one rupee and a bottle of mineral water and asked to survive a whole day in Mumbai. Now for some, 'survive' may mean lasting through the day; for others, it may mean making a hundred out of that one rupee. Unlike other shows, the contestants are not eliminated in every episode. They are there till the very last episode, when the winner is announced."

Zee Telefilms have also funded an idea that couldn't make it to the Top 20. A young woman entrepreneur has already received the initial funding for her dream shoe laundry, which will repair, mend and polish all the shoes of a family.