This Odisha man turned his passion for cars into a successful career

Fifty-three-year old Sandeep Mohanty remembers tinkering with toy cars as a kid. In his teens, he used to tamper with his father’s car and as a result often invited his father’s ire. Sandeep says, “I was mad about cars and automobiles in general. I have been driving cars since I was in Class 7.”

Resuming his admiration for automobiles, Sandeep decided to turn his hobby into a profession. He initially started an accessory business for the famous Vespa Scooters in 1999, with less than Rs 2 lakh investment. But within a year, he had to shutdown the business as the production of Vespa Scooters stopped.

Sandeep says, “I quickly shifted to offer car accessories like seat covers, perfumes, matting, audio systems and central locking systems.”

By 2003, Sandeep saw a manifold increase in his clientele. He realised his clients required repair work and accessory work for their cars quite often. Hence, he started a four-wheeler automobile workshop called RK Motors in 2003.

“We initially started providing basic services such as oil and coolant change, denting and painting," says Sandeep.

Within two years, Sandeep had 29 people working for him. As the business grew, Sandeep upgraded his workshop to provide advanced services like Injector system, wheel-balancing and hydraulic washing. “My workshop became a computerised workshop. I got everything mechanised,” he says.

In 2006, he collaborated with the Ministry of MSME, Odisha, and started imparting skills at his workshop. “I trained the staff and they got certified by the Ministry. After 45-60 days of training, a few joined my firm and others found jobs in workshops all across Odisha.”

Shifting gears

Later, in 2016, Sandeep bought a land and established a state-of-the-art workshop with an investment of around Rs 1 crore. Sandeep says, his workshop is certified by Mahindra and ISO-9001-2015, and has a capacity of servicing 20 cars a day. He has registered the company under the name Sai RK Motors Pvt Ltd, and is now seeing an annual turnover of Rs 3 crore.

“At this workshop, we bring a car that is totally damaged in an accident. We repair it and sell it again in the market with a warranty.”

Learning never stops

Sandeep always keeps a tab on improvements that can be made in his workshop. With a student for life spirit, he keeps participating in training programmes. In one of the training programmes conducted by the National Productivity Council (NPC), Sandeep says: “I was trained to use specific machines to improve productivity and reduce electricity consumption.” According to him, his overall costs have come down by almost 30 percent.

Sandeep shares an interesting incident about how he marketed his products. He says: "The Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) was looking to market its product. I advised them to market on ground and connect with workshops. I also introduced them to five-year-old Budhiya Singh, who was able to maintain a stagnant heartbeat even after running for hours. I had helped Budhiya to participate in a competition for which he won the 'Limca Book of Records’ title as the world’s youngest marathon runner. BPCL liked the idea and made Budhiya run under its banner. Happy with my suggestion, the BPCL, in return, certified my workshop, renovated it and provided me with machines. This way, my business grew by more than 100 percent and helped expand my customer base.”

Overcoming challenges

Realising the limitations the workshops had as they could not cater to all the services, Sandeep created a cluster of around 100 automobile workshops to put forth their concerns to the government.

He says, “We raised our concerns with the government, and with our persistent efforts, we are now going to have a Common Facility Centre (CFC) in which the central government would provide machinery and the state government would provide land. The government will bear 90 percent of the cost and our association will bear 10 percent. All the members will have access to the advanced service centre.”

Sandeep says he wants Odisha to be known for entrepreneurship. Sandeep, along with many others, has been helping the youth to turn to entrepreneurship. He says, "Out of the 314 blocks in Odisha, we pick one block at a time and select at least 10 people. They are counselled about entrepreneurship and how it can be pursued. Once they agree, they are trained for 90 days and are given car repair skills. After this, they are offered banks' assistance to set up their own workshop."

Sandeep says, "My aim is to enable each one of them to provide at least two jobs to others once they establish their own car workshop."

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(This story is published in partnership with the MSME Ministry to showcase success stories of SMEs)