Engineering success

MY FIRST MILLION/RAJ KUMAR DHINGRA

Back in 1980, engineer Raj Kumar Dhingra scrimped and saved to put together Rs 30,000 which he used as seed capital to get into business.

He started small as a labour contractor for bigger builders who wanted marble laid. Today, he is a property developer and runs a chain of gymnasiums and even finances films.

The gymnasium and film finance businesses allow him to dabble in his biggest passions "" films and fitness. He owns four companies which today have a turnover of around Rs 5 crore per annum.

"Construction, or for that matter, business, was nowhere on my agenda when I joined the Delhi Transport Corporation as an apprentice automobile engineer, in 1975.

While I was there, a year later, under Sanjay Gandhi, I was associated with a nondescript project called Maruti Udyog, which wanted to make cars.

Sanjay was exuberant but hardly an engineer, and after a few years, I left DTC to join Air-India in 1979. It was there that the bug of entrepreneurship bit me.

I started by organising labour for construction work. In 1981 the Government decided to build the Asiad Village complex for the 1982 Asian Games.

My company, Raj Kumar Dhingra Associates got a few small contracts for marble laying work at Siri Fort auditorium, through the DDA.

This boosted our business for a while, and then in 1988, I realised that real estate was hotting up, and started a property business, Dhingra Estates.

Around this period, Hauz Khas Village became a popular haunt, and the legendary wrestler Dara Singh, who was my father's junior at their akhada, suggested that I start a gym there.

So, in 1990, I started the Power House gymnasium. When we started I used to charge Rs 75 per month, with basic training facilities.

But then, as I travelled abroad, I knew that the future was a lot more high-tech. So, I invested a crore to import state-of-the-art machines from the US, and simultaneously started supplying high-end equipment to hotels and health clubs across the country.

While the Power Gym brand grew steadily, we started manufacturing weights, steam and sauna equipment and started selling them in India to clients such as Hughes Software Systems, NTPC, HLL and the Delhi Police.

We were also exporting the same equipment to Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. My third business venture was Bioscope productions, started in 1993, as a production company which made serials like Devta, Kareib and Nazar for Doordarshan.

However, as satellite television got bigger and organised big players like UTV and Balaji entered, I knew the era of the small-timer was over.

I still actively dabble in feature film financing, thanks largely to my former clients, who have been buying gymnasium equipment, like film stars Suneil Shetty and Mahesh Manjrekar.

Films are a passion, and through my overseas contacts, I have been lucky to have been in touch with NRIs who are interested in putting money in films and malls in India.

When an American friend saw Mahesh Manjrekar's Astitva and wanted to remake it in English, I put him in touch with Manjrekar and the film is set for release.

And then in 1999, I opened my furniture and interior designing retail outlet "" Esthetix "" my fourth business venture. The furniture we construct at the factory in Chiru, is exported to Europe and the Americas.

Business has been very buoyant this year, and I expect our gross turnover to double for the next couple of years.

I have already bought property in Rohini and am developing a mall-cum-commercial complex there. My other plans also include a foray into Mumbai, with Suneil Shetty as a partner.

This year I also intend to get into the resto-bar business. Also on the anvil are at least five Power House franchisees in non-metros and Mumbai and another Esthetix showroom in Mumbai."