Business Baazigar Irfan Alam (left) with Kamal Nath and first runner-up Ali

It is a baazigar who has been crowned at Zee TV’s reality show Business Baazigar that offered an opportunity to the common man to turn a business idea into reality. Irfan Alam refused a booty of Rs 20 lakh in an earlier round to take a wild card and won the finals in the presence of Union minister of commerce and industry Kamal Nath, aviation minister Praful Patel and business magnates Vijaypath Singhania, Mukul Kasliwal, Kishore Biyani and Sam Balsara. The final will be aired on Saturday at 8 pm on Zee TV.

A day after being felicitated by Zee Network chairman Subhash Chandra and Aditya Vikram Birla’s mother Rajashree Birla, Irfan was his confident self. “I had been eliminated but I told the judges that I’d come back,” he told Metro from Mumbai.

Irfan’s run continued in the Mini Business Baazigar show that gave a second chance to losers who had impressed the most. Irfan tasted instant success with his idea revolving round rickshaws. “In a few days, I had got a mineral water company and a media house to back my project. Then, on Saturday, my life changed in 15 minutes,” confessed the 25-year-old.

That was the day the judges — Chandra, Passionfunds CEO Mahesh Murthy and IIM Ahmedabad’s Professor Anil Gupta — were to make the selections. “Two of us were offered a chance to join the finalists and take a shot at the main title if we were to forfeit our Mini Baazigar allotments. Prakash Mundhra, who had planned the branding of puja samagri, backed out. I jumped at the chance.” Risk-taking is a way of life for Irfan, who grew up investing pocket money in the share market since he was 13.

Faced with the twin ideas of Puneet’s PET recycling and Ali’s cable network maintenance in the final, Irfan held forth on his dream rickshaws. If Zee’s last big-ticket show Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005 was decided by audience voting (for Debojit Saha), this time audience preference — Puneet (47 per cent), Ali (30 per cent) over Irfan (23 per cent) — was overruled by the judges.

Irfan is systematising the rickshaw business under his Samman brand. “My rickshaws offer customers newspapers and magazines. They can also buy a cool drink during the ride. The rickshaw-puller has to invest nothing. He keeps the fare and gets a part of the sales proceeds.” The company’s revenue comes from advertisement on the side panels of the rickshaw.

Aware of rickshaws being run out in metros, the boy from Begusarai is targeting the towns. “I’m in talks with experts to upgrade rickshaws,” he stresses. Reason enough to push the pause button on the dirge for rickshaws?