Quizmaster Giri Pickbrain (centre) is flanked by winners SS Panda (from left), Sampad Mishra and runners-up Vishal Dugar & Manoranjan Satpathy in Ranchi on Saturday. (Prashant Mitra)

Ranchi, Sept 21: Rourkela Steel Plant bagged the first place of the Ranchi leg of Tata Crucible Business Quiz, 2013, held at a city hotel today.

The team, comprising S.S. Panda and Sampad Mishra, received Rs 1 lakh as prize money. Runners-up Vodafone, comprising Vishal Dugar and Manoranjan Satpathy, won Rs 50,000.

The two teams said they would donate Rs 25,000 and Rs 15,000 from their respective prize money kitties, for charity work.

The team from Rourkela Steel Plant will vie for the regional title in Calcutta on Sunday, where it will contest against corporate quizzers selected from the other legs held at various cities including Guwahati, Bhubaneshwar and Vishakapatnam.

Governor’s principal secretary N.N. Sinha was present on the occasion and gave away the prizes. “If you do it right, nothing can prevent you from reaching the top, ” he told the quizzers.

Earlier in the day, of the over 50 teams that registered for the quiz, 30 turned up for the preliminary round comprising a written test. On the basis of their performance at the prelims, six teams qualified to the next level.

The qualifiers were Vodafone and five SAIL units. While Rourkela and Bokaro steel plants had two teams each, Management Training Institute, Ranchi, was represented by one team.

Quizmaster Giri “Pickbrain” Balasubramaniam kept the participants on their toes by throwing them questions from diverse fields. The many levels of the quiz, including an audio-visual round and a rapid fire session, saw participants rack their brains to hit upon the right answer.

The team from Rourkela Steel Plant steadily built up a lead and finished winners for the third time in a row.

At the end of the quiz, Balasubramaniam congratulated the winners, adding that the quizzing standard of Ranchi had always been high.