Subrata Roy, chairman of Sahara India, a conglomerate based in Lucknow, also began his career modestly, delivering snacks on a Lambretta scooter in Gorakhpur, an impoverished city in the east of the state. In the late 1970s he set up a small “parallel banking” business, offering generous rates of interest to poorer people without access to formal banking services, from farmers and taxi drivers to household servants.
