by Subhash K Jha

Get a load of this. On Friday April 28 on Business Baazigar two contestants Prakash and Leena posing as Bunty and Babli, are given one rupee to survive on the streets of Mumbai for 24 hours.

"It's not an easy thing to do," says Zee's senior Vice-President Ashish Kaul. "But then Business Baazigar (BB) isn't an ordinary reality show. We believe it has the potential to grow into a movement. BB isn't a television programme. We see at as a revolution.

It will change the face of the country. We expect many industrial houses to start their own BB. This is a show that empowers you to change your life and those around you.

So far TV is known as the idiot box because it just keeps talking to you without doing anything worthwhile. BB in its two- month existence has made a significant dent.

The ratings are quite mind-boggling for a serious business shows. Our surveys had told us we should expect 230-250 entries. But on the first day when we opened our doors to the entries we had over 2000 entries!"

So what's the actual impact of BB? Says Kaul. "We've had both on-air and off-air impact. On air we've seen 2 lakh business proposals have come in. We were so overwhelmed that we had to create an entire cell at Zee to sift through the entries. It seems to have changed the concept of reality TV and life.

This Friday we see two contestants surviving on one rupee.... Off-air we've funded many business ideas, for example Vimi from Mumbai who had a mindblowing idea of a shoe laundary.

Unfortunately she was eased out for underhand practices. Damodar Mishra from Rajasthan had a great idea for a substitute for cotton....Such concepts were good. But ideas and the capability to implement those ideas don't always go hand in hand. BB bridges the gap between wanting to do business and actually doing it."

Zee is flooded with business ideas from every corner of the country. Reveals Kaul, "We've decided that out of the 20 finalists, one person's business idea will be funded by Zee. But one of the other 19 semi-finalists will gets another chance on a segment called 'Mini Business Baazigar'. This is a new idea suggested by our viewers for the eased-out contestants."

The panel of judges on BB comprise Zee's head honcho Subhash Chandra, Anil Gupta (a scholar, investor and Padma Shri winner) and Mahesh Murthy (a well known investor)

In the meanwhile Johnny Lever's Johnny Alare starts on Zee at May-end. Says Kaul, "Preparation are on full-on for a weekday weekly telecast. Johnny will be the mainstay of the show. But there will be other artistes supporting him on the show."