Anindita Nayak
Bhubaneswar, 2 September, 2026
The Driver’s Licence:
In 1984, an 18-year-old Sathya Shankar K., the third of four sons born to a poor village priest in Bellare, Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka, faced a harsh reality. Severe financial constraints forced him to drop out of school after Class 12. Armed with little more than an auto-rickshaw driving licence which he viewed not as a mere piece of paper, but as his escape route from poverty he secured a government self-employment scheme loan to buy his first three-wheeler. Driving the streets of his home region, he worked relentlessly and cleared the vehicle loan within a single year.
Spotting an Untapped Market:
Determined to expand his horizons beyond the local limits of Dakshina Kannada, Shankar traded his auto-rickshaw for an Ambassador car and launched a local taxi service. Driving foreign tourists across state borders, he noticed a persistent pattern: at almost every stop, tourists immediately bought sealed bottles of packaged drinking water. That observation stayed in the back of his mind for fifteen years. Realizing that servicing cars offered better business prospects than driving them, he sold the Ambassador in 1987 to open an automobile garage and spare parts shop in Puttur, soon expanding into a tyre dealership in 1988.
Beginning of Praveen Capital:
Shankar ran his auto parts business and saw that local drivers and farmers struggled to buy vehicle spares without credit, paying small amounts when they could afford it. Seeing a big gap in formal banking for working class drivers he set up Praveen Capital in 1994. His Non-Banking Financial Company focused on financing used auto-rickshaws and commercial vehicles, a risky segment that traditional lenders avoided. Today, Praveen Capital has a presence in 13 branches in Karnataka and Kerala, adding ₹330 crore to the group’s total turnover.
Origin of Bindu and the Discovery in North India:
In 2000, Shankar realised his decades-old idea of packaged water. He set up a factory in Narimogeru village near Puttur with an initial capital of ₹35 lakh as the place received good heavy rainfall and he was interested in creating local employment for villagers who were migrating to cities. He named the brand as Bindu which means drop in Kannada language. But the big turning point came in 2002 on a trip to North India. He stopped at a roadside soda shop and watched the vendor mix the standard carbonated water with traditional spices like cumin powder and salt. He returned home to make his own version, sure an ethnic, spiced flavour could break through in a market dominated by multinationals like Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
The Rise of Bindu Fizz Jeera Masala:
He launched his flagship product, Bindu Fizz Jeera Masala, in 2002.At first it was painfully slow acceptance, 100 cases coming back unsold from every 200 shipped to the retailers. Shankar had no access to the huge advertising budgets of the international beverage giants, so he commissioned hand-painted advertisements on highway walls along trade routes.His perseverance paid off believing that Indian consumers were tired of standard cola and orange drinks. Sales continued to grow steadily and by 2006, company revenue stood at ₹6 crore and crossed ₹100 crore by 2010. The product’s huge success was subsequently highlighted by the release of their own competing cumin flavoured drinks by major global brands.
A ₹900-crore empire:
Four decades after taking his first auto loan, the 60-year-old entrepreneur now heads SG Corporates, a multi-vertical conglomerate with a combined annual turnover of ₹900 crore. Megha Fruit Processing Private Limited, its beverage and food arm, was established in 2003 and makes ₹570 crore from 55 products like packaged drinking water, Sip On, Fruzon and Snakup namkeens and exports to UAE, Singapore and Malaysia in global markets. He runs the business along with his wife Ranjitha and children Megha, Mahima and Manasvith. It has more than 2,000 people working in multiple factories, and over 1,400 distributors. A journey that began behind the wheel of a borrowed auto-rickshaw now features a luxury fleet, including an ₹11 crore Rolls-Royce Phantom, proving that local insight and perseverance can stand tall against global giants.
