From the table tennis court to the steel furnace: Anand Poddar turned ₹50 lakh into a multi-hundred-crore empire without borrowing a single rupee, powered by a sportsman’s grit and uncompromising integrity.
The Accidental Pitch: From Sports Courts to a ₹5-Lakh Experiment
Anand Poddar never set out to be an entrepreneur. A natural athlete, he spent six to seven years representing Odisha at national table tennis championships while also playing basketball, squash, tennis and cricket. After finishing high school at DPS R.K. Puram in Delhi and earning a B.Tech in engineering, he landed a campus placement at IBM in 2007, with a starting salary of about ₹30,000 a month. A short trip home to Odisha changed everything. After talking with his father, Shri Shyam Sundar Poddar, he decided not to take up the corporate job or pursue an MBA. His father had acquired a sick 12-acre footwear factory from IPICOL at Talsari, near Digha beach, and Anand spent six months studying the unit. Since footwear manufacturing was concentrated in South India, he chose a different route and turned to iron ore trading. In 2007 he borrowed ₹5 lakh from his father to test the waters with a college friend, operating on a borrowed trading licence. Success came within two months, and he then used the ₹50 lakh raised from selling the footwear machinery to launch his own trading business in earnest.
Trial by Fire: Market Crashes and Sportsman’s Grit
Starting from scratch in the mining belts, Anand found crucial mentorship among industry stalwarts, including Mr. B. Prabhakaran of Thriveni Earthmovers, Mr. Pragati Kumar Mohanty of the SNM Group and Mr. Lalit Bhaskar Sahoo of Noble Resources China. When global mineral markets collapsed after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Noble Resources honoured its contracts with him, saving his young business from being wiped out. He still regards Mr. Lalit Bhaskar Sahoo as a godsent elder brother and guide. The road was never easy. When people with ill intent repeatedly threatened him to quit the iron ore business, he neither retreated nor alarmed his family, and instead met the pressure with an athlete’s composure and worked his way out of every difficulty. His financial discipline was equally firm. Though the business scaled rapidly in a volatile trade, he vowed never to borrow a single rupee from any individual or institution. Countless opportunities slipped away for lack of capital, but he never broke that resolve.
The Industrial Leap: Ardent Steel and the Post-Covid Boom
For over a decade, Anand kept an honest supplier relationship with Raipur’s Hira Group (GPIL) and its family. He credits much of his journey to the support and integrity of Mr. B.L. Agarwal and family of GPIL, and of Mr. Sanjay Gupta, Managing Director of Ardent Steel. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Hira Group began operating its own mines in Raipur and no longer needed Odisha ore. Rather than hunt for new buyers, Anand proposed taking a direct stake in their Keonjhar plant. The timing proved perfect, as global demand for iron ore pellets surged. Because Ardent Steel ran debt-free, the plant generated steady profits, and it is now pursuing a five-year, staged expansion across 300 acres to create an integrated steel plant.
Faith, Heritage and Real Estate
Anand traces his move into real estate to his faith in Lord Jagannath, whose shrine in Puri he visits in moments of both joy and difficulty. He acquired a land parcel in Puri, and a joint development there grew into Royal Aikyam, then the tallest approved residential project in the city. His company, KP Prime Assets Private Limited, now oversees an ongoing and upcoming portfolio of 9 million square feet across Bhubaneswar, Puri and Cuttack, including two premium hotel ventures. His roots run deep. The family’s heritage goes back to the 105-year-old Poddar House in Kolkata. His father devoted decades to historical research on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Veer Savarkar, and his grandfather, the late Mr. Balkishan Poddar, worked closely with Netaji and was awarded the “Star of Kolkata” for his efforts during the Great Calcutta Killings. In December 2013, despite invitations from top political leaders to enter national politics, Anand declined, choosing to stay on his independent path.
The Core Creed: “Credibility First, Never Borrow”
Anand’s personal and business conduct rests on a few firm values. The first is his father’s golden rule, a single promise his father asked of him: never borrow, but never say no to a friend if you have it. Anand follows it to the letter. The second is absolute debt-free autonomy. He declines bank loans altogether, preferring to answer only to his conscience, and holds that credibility must always arrive before capital. The third is impact beyond the balance sheet. As Chairman of the Bhubaneswar Knights Round Table, he led a Guinness World Record effort in which over 30,000 citizens unfurled an 11-kilometre tricolour. Driven by a vision of putting Odisha on the national concert circuit, he also brought Mr. Arijit Singh to Barabati Stadium for the state’s first stadium concert by the singer, drawing over 32,000 people.
