A 30-year-old auto rickshaw driver named Anoop B from Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram won a jackpot of Rs 25 crore in the state government’s Onam bumper lottery on Sunday (September 18). According to The Times of India, the lottery ticket was bought by the man on Saturday evening. Reportedly, he did not have enough money to buy the ticket, so he broke the piggy bank of his two-year-old son. “I wanted to buy the ticket but was falling short of Rs 500 needed for it. I bought the ticket from a lottery agency,” he said.
Anoop, who was a cook at an eatery, had switched to driving the autorickshaw to take care of his family. Anoop was also planning to move to Malaysia to become a chef at a hotel there and was awaiting his visa when his life took a sudden turn.
Anoop had applied for a Rs 3 lakh loan from a cooperative bank for his traveling process. The bank official recently called him to inform him that his loan application has been approved but Anoop won’t be needing the loan now. He often used to buy lottery tickets from cousin Sujaya, a lottery agent, this time he decided to purchase it directly from an agency. At first, he did not like the numbers on the first ticket that was given to him and decided to select another.
“I thought I would buy it directly from the agency this time, but this was not the first ticket I took. I was not happy with the series number of the first ticket I selected. The number 750605 felt like a fancy number for me,” he said.
The number 750605 eventually turned out to be the winning number. Anoop said that with the winning amount he will repay the money that he borrowed from people and build a house of his own. He also wants to help his cousin sister, and other relatives. Now he is planning to open his own eatery in the city. After the tax deduction, Anoop will get Rs 15.75 crore of the Rs 25 crore.